Pre-purchase building inspections in Melbourne are fairly common, but not every homebuyer retains one, and the potential risks of foregoing an inspection can be quite costly. It’s just a fact of life that trust is required for all sorts of transactions, and where trust cannot be guaranteed (practically everywhere), it is up to good faith and hope, which can and often do let one down.
Big ticket items like expensive used cars often get inspected before handing over thousands of dollars, so why not do the same with a home which can cost much more than even the fanciest of used cars? Here are a few reasons why you should get a pre-purchase building inspection in Melbourne and potentially save yourself thousands of dollars.
Detect Immediate & Desirable Remedial Works
Whenever you end up with a surprise after purchasing a property, it usually isn’t a good one. This could be a faulty boiler or damaged plumbing, rotten timber framing, a leaky roof, or water damage to the foundations. All of these could be, at best, repairs that can cost thousands of dollars; at worst, they could cost a lot more and leave you having to rent a hotel room whilst work is being performed.
Not exactly the kind of surprises you should want after dropping hundreds of thousands or a million dollars on a home! Residential pre-purchase building inspections shoot down the element of surprise, dead in the water, leaving you with crystal clear knowledge of the actual condition of a property, inside and out, before dropping the cash.
Renegotiate Property Sale Prices
When a pre-purchase building inspection is completed and the analysis presented in a report, there is no doubt about the actual (not advertised) condition of the home. Homebuyers can walk away from a purchase altogether or, if still interested, renegotiate the asking price with the seller.
A responsible seller might use the report to perform all works, retain invoices for the works completed, and adjust the price accordingly, which gives you the property at a fair price in the condition you expect it to be in.
In the best case, a pre-purchase inspection reveals nothing of note and the seller was honest all along!
Protect Your Valuable Investment
A pre-purchase building inspection is incredibly valuable for prospective homebuyers and something that is unfortunately overlooked – quite often to their detriment if costly issues are identified after the transaction.
While there is no legal requirement in Victoria or other states/territories in Australia to retain a pre-purchase building inspection, it is nevertheless strongly recommended. It gives peace of mind, transparency, and accountability for homebuyers, and that alone is enough of a reason for many to retain one.
Homeowners can also retain one, even if the incentives are seemingly not always in their favour. Provided that a homeowner is in the process of selling their property and is honest about its actual condition, the inspection can be used to clearly demonstrate that the home is shown as advertised and that prospective buyers can trust a third party that specialises in building inspections such as Guardian Building Inspections.
Guardian Building Inspections
Contact us at Guardian Building Inspections for pre-purchase building inspections and more.
