Viewing a houseViewing checklist

Use your checklist when viewing

The questions to ask

It’s easy to fall in love with a property and forget to be practical. However, by keeping your wits about you and asking yourself and the agents direct questions, it’s possible to avoid problems.

The viewing checklist below is a printable, easy-to-use list of questions that you should ask yourself, the owner or the estate agent when you look around a property.

Resources

Viewing checklist
Viewing checklist (PDF: 328Kb)

04 April 2007

Download a list of questions that you should ask yourself or the estate agent when you look around a property.

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Watch the signs before you buy

We asked 504 people who had bought a house in the past 5 years about their house buying experiences. A quarter of these found faults with their home after moving in. And it can be expensive to put them right – in some cases, more than £10,000.

Viewing a house

According to our survey, most people view their home twice before moving in. However, one in 20 don’t view their home at all. Even in a fast-moving market, it’s a bad idea to buy unseen.

The more often you view a house, the more likely you are to spot potential problems before you move in.

Overall, 40 per cent of people identified a problem while viewing their home – most often minor problems such as damaged wood or paintwork.

Even so, if you do spot a problem it could be a valuable bargaining tool – 41 per cent of those who spotted a problem themselves negotiated a reduction in the asking price and 10 per cent ensured that the problem was corrected.

Getting a survey

Less than 50 per cent of those we asked said that they’d had a proper survey. In reality, it could be even fewer. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors reckons that 80 per cent of people don’t have a proper survey.

A survey is vital as there are some problems you just can’t confirm for yourself. Even if you suspect damp or subsidence, only a surveyor can tell you for sure.

In our research, more than a fifth of buyers said that the survey uncovered problems they hadn’t spotted themselves. Of those whose survey uncovered a problem, 44 per cent negotiated money off and a further 10 per cent ensured the problem was corrected.

Finding problems later

A quarter of people found a problem with their house after they’d moved in.

Almost a third of people said they’d missed a problem because it hadn’t occurred to them to look, while a quarter felt that problems had been hidden from them.

Problems that people found after they moved in
Problem	Percentage of people
Poor heating	20%
Damp	14%
Badly fitting windows/doors	9%
Problems with the roof	9%
Problems with gas/electricity supply	8%
Damaged wood/paintwork	7%
Mould in bathroom	7%
No loft insulation	7%
Bare electrical wires	6%
Environmental issues (loud noise, bright lights etc.)	6%
Dry or wet rot/woodworm	6%
Leaks/plumbing problems	5%