Surveyor indicated that property might have Asbestos

[premiumn]

We just had our offer approved and had a surveyor go around the property. The report came back as "some walls might contain asbestos" we have 3 young DC and it terrifies me. We want to renovate and extend so ideally I'd like it removed but even that scares me. What if they leave particles behind?

Has anyone had theirs removed? How do they check that every particle is gone? 😩

You have to use specialist removal companies, this is costly. Also your mortgage company may insist on its removal. Most houses built 40/60 years ago will have some asbestos. There is also different types of asbestos, we had asbestoslux, which my DH said wasn’t the bad stuff to remove from our garage. Perhaps you need a more in-depth survey done.

what sort of survey? if not a full structural survey then you need to start with one of those

You need a survey done to get the suspected walls tested to confirm the presence or not of asbestos. Maybe push this back on the vendor? When it comes to removal, they will do an air pressure test after in each room to ensure that there are no traces remaining.

Thanks both for your replies.

It was a survey done by our lender.
We will be booking our in depth one hopefully it's not too bad.

I wouldn't care too much if it was just me moving in.

"some walls might contain asbestos"
Did you notice the word might in there? Is this the Surveyor practising arse-covering or is there actually any substance to the claim? Ask for more details.

Thank you.

We are currently looking into it and will definitely be booking for a proper check

Ah that's good they can test after!
I did some Googling and couldn't find anything about how they test it's all gone from the air 🤪

They will say that for anything built before the 90s when they were banned. Unless you buy a 90s home or newer, then don’t worry about it unless you plan to build an extension or remodel the house layout.

RICS are huge on professional indemnity and not getting yourself in shit. If the house is older than late 80s/early 90s it would say that even if it was reasonably obvious it wasn’t there.