1. Building & Pest Inspection Reports – the NSW Government have abolished the need for a building and pest inspector to hold a licence, have any sort of professional liability insurance or the need to have any prior experience in the field. What does this mean for you? There are many businesses offering building and pest inspection reports at varying prices.
Case Study
Recently one of our clients was offered a building inspection report from a Real Estate Agent at the cost of $330.00. We suggested to the client to obtain a copy of building inspectors insurance prior to purchasing the report. When we checked the insurance details it revealed that the “insured” was a company (capable of being wound up) and the excess on the policy was $20,000 for each and every claim! {The excess could be caused by either past claims or reduced annual premium}. It should be noted that if there was an insurance claim a $20,000 excess could mean a business folds and you are left without any coverage.
If our office makes a recommendation for building and/or pest inspection report you can be confident that we have checked the inspector’s level of experience, insurance and ensure their license details are up to date.
2. Are you looking to move to a Suburb you are not familiar with? It is a good idea to see if you can locate the local community noticeboard. The noticeboard can reveal issues affecting the local community. Eg, issues with local transport connections (or lack of), proposed changes to infrastructure or zoning, action groups, local school issues etc. These types of issues are not covered in any Contract for sale of land. Most local communities also have a local magazine, newspaper or gazette which are regularly distributed.
These types of publications can provide another source of information about issues affecting the local area.
3. Keys & Locks – You should factor the cost of replacing the locks to your new property into your budget. We cannot guarantee who may still have a key to the property eg, a former owner, tenant, managing agent or real estate agent. {The Contract does not provide any way to ensure that all keys to the property are provided to you as the purchaser}.
4. Insurance – You should also factor the cost of insurance (contents, replacement building, strata fixtures & fittings and/or landlord’s insurance) into your budget. If you are obtaining a mortgage to assist in financing your purchase it is a standard condition of any mortgage that you have either strata fixtures & fittings insurance (for a strata unit) or full replacement building insurance (for a house).
5. Moving in – Where it can be avoided we recommend that you do not plan your move into your new property until 1-2 days following the due date for settlement. This is because delays can occur which are beyond our control (eg, delay by the vendor or the vendor’s bank or your financing bank). If your move is delayed it may save you time, money and additional stress.
