Building and Pest Reports
There are areas of a property that you can’t actually inspect when you visit the property, such as roofs, ceilings, and sub floor areas just to name a few. Some areas are difficult to inspect, and you need to know what you’re looking for to begin with!
To avoid expensive surprises after purchase, a Building And Pest Report (or similar) from a qualified inspection company is a good idea. In NSW your inspector must be licensed, so check their credentials.
How do I get one?
Your LJ Hooker agent can recommend where to find a good building/pest inspector, or you could look in the yellow pages or on the internet.
In Australia both Archicentre and the Housing Industry Association (HIA), among others, provide an inspection service. For a fee, they inspect and report on the state of the property, including the structural condition, damp and termites.
149 Certificate
This certificate can be obtained from your Council and explains the planning controls and constraints that apply to a specific property. For example any unauthorized activities on the property, such as subdivision. A 149 certificate costs roughly $ 40 AUD.
Title Check
A title check will give you a report on everything that affects your property, such as right of way access, drainage, or cross-leases. There may also be obligations on the title that could affect how you use the property. A person’s mortgage is also connected to the title of a property, so a lawyer (as part of the conveyancing) will remove the seller’s mortgage from the title.
Valuation
An assessment of the value of your property is required for a variety of reasons:
- Financing your mortgage, the lender will want to know the value of the property.
- Insuring your property
- Knowing if it is a fair market valuation
- If you are planning on making extensions and improvements the valuer will tell you if they will actually increase your property value.
Every property must also be re-valued every two years for rating purposes.
