Buying or Selling

What a survey covers

Less Than You Think

A standard homebuyer report is a visual inspection of accessible areas. Surveyors routinely do not lift fitted carpets, move heavy furniture, enter a loft with no safe access, open up construction, or inspect drains beyond lifting an accessible chamber cover.

Which means several pest problems are structurally invisible to it. Bed bugs are essentially never found by a survey. Carpet moth under a fitted carpet at the edges of a room is missed routinely. A drain defect letting rats in is below the level of the inspection. And a wasp nest in a cavity shows as nothing at all in winter.

Surveyors do reliably note visible rodent evidence in a loft, obvious timber damage, and gaps in the fabric — and a good one will flag "no loft access" rather than implying the loft is fine.

If you have a reason to be concerned, a separate pest inspection or a CCTV drain survey costs a fraction of the problem it finds, and both can be done before exchange.

Selling

What You Have to Say

The standard property information form asks directly about relevant matters affecting the property, and the honest answer to a direct question is the honest answer. Misrepresentation on that form is a real risk, not a theoretical one.

The usual worry is that disclosing a past problem kills the sale. In practice it does less damage than people fear, and considerably less than it being discovered later.

What genuinely helps is disclosing it with the paperwork: what happened, who treated it, what was done, what was proofed and when. "We had rats in 2024, here is the report, here is the invoice for closing the drain defect, no activity since" is a much stronger position than a blank answer and a suspicious buyer.

A treated and proofed problem with records is close to a non-event. An untreated one that is disclosed at least lets the buyer price it. An undisclosed one is the one that causes trouble.

Buying

What to Look For Yourself

Half an hour at a viewing, and nobody will think it odd:

• Look in the loft, if you can. Droppings, flattened insulation, chewed cable, a nest, or the smell.
• Check the edges of rooms where fitted carpet meets skirting, especially under furniture and behind doors. Carpet moth starts where nobody walks.
• Look at the outside at low level — airbricks, pipe entries, gaps under the garage door, the bin area.
• Lift a drain cover if one lifts easily. Droppings on dry benching are close to conclusive.
• Look behind and under the kitchen units at the plinth line.
• Ask directly, and ask whether any treatment has been done. You are entitled to.

Empty properties are worth extra attention. A house that has been unoccupied for months has had no disturbance, and things establish quietly.

Mid-sale

When It Turns Up at the Worst Moment

It happens, usually a fortnight before exchange, and it is nearly always resolvable if it is handled as a repair rather than a row.

The sequence that works: get it properly identified and get a written report with a scope and a cost. Then it is a number, and a number can be negotiated — seller treats before completion, a retention is held, or the price is adjusted.

What does not work is arguing about it without a report. Nobody can price "there might be rats", and uncertainty is what collapses sales rather than the pest.

The cases that genuinely need care are bed bugs, because moving furniture moves them and the buyer inherits the problem in their new home; and anything involving a structural or drainage defect, where the treatment is the small number and the repair is the large one.

Short answers

Drain Blocker Questions

Going further

Drain and Rat Guides