Surveyor is really unprofessional

[SurveyorProblems]

Hi lovely Mumsnetters,
First-time poster, but long-term lurker smile

Sorry to bother you all just before Christmas, but I am desperate for some wisdom and advice and I thought AIBU might be the best place for support. sad

A few weeks ago, we asked a surveyor to do a Level 3 Building Survey for a property we would like to purchase. We have just received the completed report from him and the quality of the report is shocking.

As first-time buyers we didn't know what to expect really. So we spoke to friends and looked at examples of Level 3 surveys online.
Unfortunately, the quality of the report he has sent to us is shocking.

For example, he has misspelt our names (not a big issue in itself), but also there are numerous spelling errors across the whole report (including sections/descriptions which do not make any grammatical sense at all).

More concerningly, he boasted of taking lots of photographs.
However, the attached photos are of very low quality. The images are extremely blurry and sometimes it is impossible to determine what exact issue is being highlighted here. (Think taking a picture of the boiler from a weird angle and in bad lighting - so bad it is impossible to read the model).

He has requested that we pay him £700 for this report.
We are not sure if we are being unreasonable with our concerns. So any advice is really appreciated.

I would be happy to attach some sections which highlight the poor quality.

Did he not provide samples of his reports when he quoted?

@DonGray
Hi - thanks for your message.
The surveyor did not really send us an example of a previous report that he had written.
Instead he sent us an example of the type of report that he would be doing. It looked professional and was basically a layout/bullet points with examples of the areas which the report would be covering.

He explained that he had been working in our City for over 35 years (which is true) and that he also had a postgraduate qualification in Architecture (also true).

Had we known how poorly he would perform, we would've certainly looked elsewhere.

I am assuming I am not unreasonable in being disappointed :(

Tell him you don't understand part of it or can tell what the photos are illustrating. Put it back on him to clarify and explain. £700 is cheap though (I paid £1300 inc VAT).

Sounds a bit shite to me! The photos shouldn’t be blurry for a start!!

Sounds like he rushed it before Christmas and couldn’t be arsed.

Disclaimer: many surveyors and architects are dyslexic. It’s really common in the industry so please don’t be rude when you mention misspellings. However, he should be checking his work before sending it to clients….

£700 is pretty cheap but that report is obviously not acceptable. Hopefully what happened is that it got delegated to a junior/trainee and then the uncorrected version got sent to you.

I would write back asking for a revision within seven working days.

1. Point out the first three typos and then say there are many similar spelling errors that need to be corrected.
2. Point out the first sentence with a syntactical error and say the rest will need to be fixed.
3. Point out that most of the photos are too blurred to be useful - - for instance you can't even see what model the boiler is.

If he doesn't get it corrected, don't pay. Take it up with RICS.

@woodlandarchitect
Yes - I suspected that it might be dyslexia (I have the same diagnosis since childhood), but I was somewhat concerned that he didn't double-check his work before sending off the final report.

I don't think he felt rushed as we instructed him weeks before Christmas. He set his own deadline and explained the completed report would be with us by last Monday. We only got the stuff today. :(

As mentioned before he is a sole trader and so work wasn't delegated to a junior colleague.

@Coffeetree
Yes, £700.00 is about the average in our area. We were happy to pay more for another surveyor (from a large company).
However, this gentleman explained that he was highly experienced as he had been working in our City for over 35 years.
I know regret falling for this.

May I ask if anyone had any structural comments included in their report? Ours only states a single line "no evidence of subsidence".
Nothing else. Is this normal?

The report was also only 15 pages long (with lots of empty spaces) - I asked a lovely colleague to send me their house's Level 3 building survey - theirs was in excess of 30 pages. :(

He also added the location plan for an entirely different property to the report...
So I am not exactly convinced he is very detail orientated.

At least you haven't paid yet! I would just give him one chance to rectify and then when he fails, instruct someone else. If he tries to demand payment, refer him to RICS.