Level 3 Building Survey in Leeds

What a Level 3 Building Survey actually includes

The inspection is visual, but it is as thorough as a visual inspection can be made without taking the building apart. The surveyor gets into the roof void and looks at the timbers, the underside of the coverings, the insulation, the ventilation and any tanks. Flat roofs that can be reached safely from a ladder are inspected from above rather than guessed at from the ground. Cellars are entered wherever access is safe, and in Leeds there is usually a cellar to enter. Loose floor coverings are turned back at corners with the owner's permission, inspection chambers are lifted where they can be found, and moisture readings are taken around the perimeter at low level and anywhere else the building invites attention.

The report then works through the property element by element and, for every defect, answers three questions: what it is, what caused it, and what to do about it and in what order. Repairs are described with enough precision that a builder can price them without a second visit. Where something genuinely needs a specialist to take it further, the report names that specialist and explains what they will be asked to determine, instead of leaving you holding an instruction to seek further advice with no idea what advice or from whom. Energy efficiency is covered under Section K, and the surveyor discusses the property with you before the inspection and again once you have read the report.

• A conversation with the surveyor before the visit, so anything that bothered you at the viewing is looked at deliberately rather than by chance.
• Roof void inspection covering the structure, the coverings from beneath, the fixings, insulation, ventilation and evidence of past or present water entry.
• External inspection of walls, pointing, render, rainwater goods, chimney stacks and flashings, from a ladder where that is safe and by drone where it is not.
• Internal inspection of every accessible room, with moisture readings taken and the reasoning behind each one explained.
• Cellars, outriggers, garages, outbuildings and boundary walls, which on Leeds terraces carry far more of the risk than buyers expect.
• A visual assessment of the services on view, their apparent age, and a clear statement of what should be tested before exchange.
• The likely cause of every defect recorded, with repairs ranked by urgency so the money goes where it does most good first.
• Advice on the energy performance of the building under Section K, and a follow-up call once the written report has landed.

What it does not include, and exactly where the Level 2 line falls

A Level 3 is not a licence to dismantle somebody else's house. The surveyor does not open up walls, lift fitted carpets or laminate, take up fixed floorboards, remove secret fixings, dismantle boxing or move heavy furniture and stored goods. Services are looked at, not tested, so there is no electrical certificate and no gas safety check inside the report. It is not a search: the Coal Authority mining report, the flood search and the drainage and water enquiry are your solicitor's to obtain, although the report will tell them when one is warranted. Asbestos materials are noted where they are visible and suspected, but they are not sampled under this instruction. And unlike the mid-level report, a Level 3 does not automatically carry a market valuation or a reinstatement figure for insurance, so if you want either of those, ask for them when you instruct.

The line between the two levels is best drawn from this side of it. A Level 2 is a proportionate screening exercise on a conventional house that looks to be in reasonable order, and when it meets something awkward it is designed to stop, flag it and send you elsewhere. A Level 3 is designed to keep going. On a Leeds property with a cellar, a subdivided plan, unrecorded alterations or visible movement, a Level 2 will frequently produce a page of items marked for further investigation, and you then pay a second professional to answer the questions the first one raised. The deeper report answers them the first time.

There are properties where a Level 3 is genuinely unnecessary, and we will say so before you spend the money. A well-kept 1980s or 1990s detached house at Colton, Manston or Adel with its original layout, a sound covering, no extension and no sign of movement is a mid-level property. So is most purpose-built modern flatted stock. Choosing the deeper report there buys you thoroughness you do not need, and we would rather tell you that on the phone than after the invoice.

The Leeds properties where a Level 3 earns its keep

Leeds hands a surveyor a particular set of problems, and they are problems of alteration as much as of age. The city's terraces and villas have been extended, subdivided, converted to flats, let to students, converted back, and repaired in whatever way was cheapest at the time. Very little of that is documented. The Level 3 exists to read a building backwards and work out what happened to it.

These are the situations where we routinely recommend the deeper report rather than the mid-level one.

• Through terraces in Kirkstall, Meanwood and Bramley where the rear outrigger has settled away from the main house and the junction between the two has been filled repeatedly instead of repaired once.
• Victorian and Edwardian villas in Headingley, Roundhay and Chapel Allerton split into flats, where walls have been removed floor by floor and the original load path is no longer obvious from either side.
• Stone property on the western edge at Horsforth, Rawdon, Yeadon and Farsley, where solid walls, heavy stone slate roofs and a later coat of cement render work against each other.
• Any house with a dormer loft conversion and no completion certificate, where the surveyor has to establish from inside whether the floor was strengthened and whether the escape route is real.
• Mills and warehouses converted to flats around Holbeck, Hunslet and the Kirkstall Road corridor, with cast iron columns, timber floors, wide single ply roofs and communal plant you will help pay to replace.
• Houses bought at auction or repossessed and left empty over a winter, where burst pipework, a dead boiler and stripped metal are ordinary rather than bad luck.
• Rear returns opened into kitchens, where the beam or lintel carrying the wall above is concealed by plasterboard on both faces and the only evidence is the way the door frames sit.
• Anything you are buying specifically to renovate, because the report sequences the work and separates the repairs that hold the building up from the ones that make it pleasant.

What the written report contains and how to use it

The document is long, and it is meant to be read in sections rather than cover to cover in one sitting. It opens with an overall summary of the property and the matters that need attention most urgently, then works through the outside, the inside, the services, the grounds and the legal points your conveyancer should take up. Each element carries a description of what was seen, an opinion on why it is in that condition, and a recommendation. Photographs are used where a photograph settles the point faster than a paragraph.

The section buyers use hardest is the one on repairs and priorities. It separates work that must be done before or shortly after completion from work that can wait a season or two and work that is simply maintenance. That ranking is what makes the report useful in a negotiation. Going back to a seller with a general complaint that the house needs work rarely moves anybody. Going back with a specific defect, a stated cause and a described repair usually does, because the seller's agent can see that a different buyer will be told the same thing.

There is also a list of matters for your legal adviser: missing consents, guarantees that should be handed over, shared drainage, rights of access across a neighbour's yard, boundary responsibility and any search we think the setting demands. Getting those in front of a conveyancer early is often worth more in saved time than the survey fee, because they are the things that stall an exchange in the last fortnight.

Instructing a Level 3 Building Survey in Leeds

Instruct as soon as your offer is accepted. A Level 3 takes longer on site than the mid-level report, commonly several hours on a cellared terrace or a converted villa, and it needs a run at the building rather than a slot between two viewings. We book access with the agent and tell them exactly what we need open: the loft hatch, the cellar, the meter cupboards, any outbuilding and the rear yard. If the property is tenanted, and a great deal of the Headingley, Hyde Park and Burley stock is, we allow extra time for notice.

Tell the surveyor beforehand what you noticed. Buyers are often better observers than they think. A door that would not shut, a smell in a back bedroom, a section of ceiling that had clearly been replaced, a patch of garden that stayed wet in dry weather: every one of those is a thread worth pulling, and a surveyor who knows to pull it starts an hour ahead.

Where the report identifies something that needs a specialist opinion, we can carry that work out rather than handing you a list of strangers to ring. That covers a structural engineer's report where movement needs a definite answer, a timber and damp report where moisture has got into structural timber, a drone roof survey on a tall Victorian roof or a mill conversion, and an asbestos survey before refurbishment of anything built or refitted before the year 2000. Keeping the follow-up with the surveyor who saw the property first means nobody starts again from the pavement.