As a chartered building surveyor of 40 years’ standing, my specialisms have been in the preparation of full building surveys (previously known as structural surveys) and what are known as ‘engineers reports’. The latter are usually consequent upon the requirements of a mortgage valuer, but increasingly I finding that it is clients who have had a full building survey undertaken that also require my services in this context.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors definition of a full building survey is reasonably unambiguous and ‘sold’ to the public with the assurance that the surveyor who undertakes the report will cover all structural elements and conclude upon them. In fact, an increasing number of so called full building surveys, for which the client will have paid a substantial fee, seem to include a recommendation for the customer to obtain a whole raft of so called specialist reports to cover areas where the building surveyor ‘doesn't feel confident’ to cover himself.

During the last few years, I have seen clients recommended to obtain structural engineers reports in matters of wall cracks (some of them as simple as shrinkage at plasterboard sheet joints), employ trade specialists to cover anything from roof to wood beetle, and global warming specialists to cover the depth of insulation in the roof void!

I have even been asked to provide a ‘specialist report’ on the matter of whether brickwork pointing was satisfactory. On another occasion I had to write a report as to whether there might be ‘rot in windows’, and on another occasion the surveyor recommended a specialist report to cover ‘the reasons behind misting up in double glazing units’.

Accepting instructions to undertake a full building survey and then ducking major issues that under the RICS description should otherwise have been covered seems to me to be an infringement of trades description. I suspect one cause is that the public, after years of the house buyer’s report, wants something better. Consequently, there may be a propensity for surveyors who would not normally have touched a full building survey to accept instructions in the knowledge that they can defer large parts of what they should have covered to third-party specialists

This is bringing the profession into disrepute and should be stopped. A full building survey is just that – a thorough investigation of the building backed by sufficient knowledge to enable the client to decide whether or not to proceed with a purchase. I accept that there are certain aspects of a structure that will require specialist reports such as drains, electrics or heating performance, but in terms of structure it really should be down to the surveyor.

RD Wolstenholme, Wolstenholme Chartered Building Surveyors, Halifax