Building Surveying

Building surveyors are trained to understand the design and construction of buildings, making them a valuable asset to your project’s team. Our building surveyor can help provide advice and recommendations on buildings at all stages of their life cycle – new, existing and defective.

Understanding the condition of your building allows you to make informed decisions before an event occurs or work needs to be undertaken, and can give you valuable protection when it comes to insurance claims and remedial work.

Long-term maintenance planning           

All building components have a limited serviceable life and will ultimately deteriorate over time. Through a planned building maintenance programme, you can extend and protect the life of the various components, saving money in the long run and helping your building retain its desireability and value.

Our team can provide a report that helps you understand its condition, financial planning for the long-term building maintenance needs, and establish a 10-year Long-Term Maintenance Plan (LTMP) that meets legal requirements.

Weathertightness

If you suspect you own a leaky building or have a weathertightness issue, we can assist at all stages of the process – from initial assessment and confirmation of existing leaks, through to supporting you in the various stages of design and remediation.

Expert witness (Dispute Resolution)

Our building surveyor can provide impartial expert advice for weathertight claims and other building-related disputes, and act for any party in litigation processes, including homeowners, body corporates, builders, developers, insurers, councils, and defendants to a legal claim.

Due diligence (Commercial and Residential Pre-purchase)

You don’t know what lies beneath, so it’s important to identify the condition of a property, and its likely future repair and building maintenance requirements before you acquire an interest in that property. We can help you identify those risks, allowing you to make informed decisions about whether or not to proceed with an acquisition.

Condition Survey

A Schedule of Condition records the condition of a property at a given point in time and acts like an insurance policy, documenting a property’s condition before an event occurs. Undertaking another Schedule of Condition survey after events have taken place highlights what’s changed, minimising the likelihood of disputes occurring at a later date.

Our building surveyor can carry out a condition survey at any stage, however it is recommended that one be undertake:

  • prior to commencement or at the termination of a lease
  • prior to development or infrastructure works commencing
  • prior to developing a long-term maintenance plan 
  • prior to purchasing a property (this would typically be referred to as due diligence or pre-purchase)
  • if an owner or tenant wishes to establish the condition of one or more properties (stock condition surveys).

Reinstatement Assessment (also Known As Dilapidations)

Where there is a legal lease liability for the condition of disrepair on either landlord or tenant, our building surveyor can help you document the state of disrepair of a property and the associated costs, then scope and manage the required remedial action.

A Reinstatement Assessment Report can help you interpret repair or reinstatement liabilities, to minimise financial exposure prior to termination of the lease.

There are two types: A terminal schedule, which is served no more than six months before the expiry of the lease, or an interim schedule, detailing items of disrepair arising from the tenant’s failure to comply with a repair covenant identified by the landlord during the term of the lease.

Quality Manager (similar to clerk of works)

The quality manager has a key role to play in any construction project when it comes to quality control of your project.

As an independent advisor, we will review your plans and specifications prior to construction to identify any fundamental errors.  We regularly monitor the work as it happens on site, observing construction to ensure it meets all compliance requirements, and check that the quality of products arriving are up to standard, installed correctly and to the right specification.

A recently completed remediation project identified more than 200 non-conforming issues that would have otherwise gone undetected had a quality manager not been present. Had they not been identified, it would have likely resulted in premature failure of the building.

Staff contact

Wayne Pittams
Phone: 021 708 478
Email: wayne@ipms.net.nz