We often refer to being bound by the RICS Rules of Conduct but what do they actually cover? Here we list the latest guide, effective form 25th April 2017, from RICS; Conduct of Business Professional behaviour A Firm shall at all times act with integrity and avoid conflicts of interest and avoid any actions or situations that are inconsistent with … Read More
New Faces at Chawton Hill
New faces at Chawton Hill – The pace of our recent growth has meant we are a little behind in formally welcoming the latest New Faces at Chawton Hill. It’s been a hectic few months with ongoing project work, pitches for new multi-million pound building schemes and the ongoing expansion of The Chawton Hill Way regional building surveyor programme. The … Read More
Party Wall advice
Party walls are an important aspect to consider when buying a new property. You’ll need to know if you share any walls, fences or boundaries with the neighbours, and whether they’ve got any plans to build before you move in. A building survey can tell you everything you need to know about party walls, but we’ve made a good start … Read More
A Dog is a Building Surveyors Best Friend
Building Surveying dogs Our surveyors are often followed around a property by the owner’s dog(s) when carrying out a building survey. Most are just keen to see what’s going on and keep an eye on ‘their’ house! We recently posted a few ‘surveying dog’ pictures on Twitter, a couple of which are re-posted below. We had also written an article … Read More
Choosing the perfect location
Finding the perfect location for your next home isn’t just about looking at the most expensive postcodes, although this is often a good starting point. The key is to list the type of lifestyle you lead and what facilities and amenities are important to you. Then you stand a much better chance of pinpointing the best location for you. First … Read More
15 House Buyer Questions
These 15 house buyer questions should help in deciding on your next move. House hunting can be such a stressful time that it’s easy to forget some of the key things you need to know before making that leap. But if you do, you could find yourself stuck with a host of problems that are difficult and expensive to solve. … Read More
Safe roof surveying
Safe roof surveying is an issue we’ve touched on before when reviewing Building Survey Drones back in April last year. Whilst there are a good number of benefits associated with using drones when carrying out building surveys on particular types of buildings, such as reduced risks & increased access to hard to reach areas, they are less practical for day-to-day property … Read More
Merry Christmas from all of us!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at Chawton Hill! It has been a busy and exciting year, so we thought we would take a look back at 2016; Attending the ISBA conference in March for the first time in 5 years was a great success & we are delighted to have been accepted for the 2017 Conference in … Read More
The Perfect Building Surveyor
Here’s a graphical, somewhat lighthearted look at the Perfect Building Surveyor. More blog pieces you may like; Women in Surveying Surveying Equipment Homeowners take a serious financial risk Property Maintenance If you are looking for a local, RICS Chartered Building Surveyor for your new property, one that understands the local market & area then please do get in touch. Our … Read More
Modern Methods of Construction
Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) have been a recurring topic for many years. At last weeks Conservative Party Conference, Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, once again referenced MMC but what exactly are they and are they being employed in today’s construction projects? The answer to the last question is not really! Recent research by the NHBC Foundation found … Read More
Customer Reviews
We have been collecting Customer Reviews for a few months via SurveyMonkey, mainly for our residential building surveys in and around Surrey. Some of the comments and feedback we have received you can see on our Building Survey Quick Quote page but we thought it would be interesting to share some of the statistics to date. Whilst the sample size is … Read More
Should you rely on a desktop mortgage valuation?
It is interesting to see just how reliant High Street mortgage providers are becoming on an automated mortgage valuation. On Your Side A recent experience with one that claimed to be On My Side was a good example. There was an implied acceptance that confirmation of our anticipated valuation identified a ‘good’ property. The mortgage valuation report came back and … Read More
Partner Profile – Urban Point Property Management
The second in our Partner Profile series is with property management company, Urban Point based in New Malden, Surrey. Realising the immense potential within Surrey and with the ever growing need for new residential blocks of flats, Urban Point was one of the early entrants into the Surrey property management sector over 20 years ago. Our first project together involved reviewing a … Read More
New Building Survey Report
We have been gathering feedback on how our Building Survey Reports are presented and if there were any useful sections we could build in. Recently we looked at how our RICS Building surveyors were now using direct input dictation software loaded on their smartphones to help speed up the delivery of the report to our house-buying customers. Often the draft … Read More
Removing a chimney
Removing a chimney when fires are no longer used increases living space and in certain rooms, such as bedrooms, makes it much easier to arrange furniture. Older properties were built with fireplaces in every room but with modern central heating, chimney breasts are often unused and considered as wasted floor space. Given that in London for example, residential floor space can easily … Read More
Flood, Fire Insurance Claims
Trust Experience A fire or flood is a very traumatic time for a property owner. Fortunately the Qualified Chartered Surveyors at Chawton Hill are experts in Flood, Fire insurance claims. Their insurance related advice is regulated by RICS, supported by our ISO 9001:2008 certification and trusted through years of experience. Each commission is treated with the utmost sensitivity and discretion. … Read More
- Page 1 of 2
- 1
- 2