Termite Damage And The Estate Agent

It does not matter what the circumstances are, the news of termite damage is never favourable, even if you caught it before any severe damage happened and even if you have already fixed it. This is because it demonstrates that your house is in danger of further attack.

This is very bad news indeed if you want to sell your home, because the estate agent's inspection of your property will reveal the truth and that will worry a lot of potential purchasers. Where termites are discovered by the estate agent and the vendor did not even know, it is normal practice for the vendor to offer to destroy the termites and fix the damage.

However, this is often not sufficient to save either the sale of the premises or its original selling price. You may have to take a large reduction in the selling price. This is because the pest controllers can give a report that the termites have been eradicated and the estate agent can give a statement that the visible damage has been repaired, but who is going to give such a report on the overall structure of the house?

Structural damage is not always noticeable to the naked eye and some termites are even subterranean. Some termites will even eat concrete! If there is structural damage, the costs can easily run into tens of thousands of dollars.

Forty or fifty thousand is not an exaggeration. Therefore, the only way to satisfy a prospective purchaser, or indeed, yourself, that your home is structurally sound, is to bring in a structural engineer.

Do not worry yet, that does not necessarily have to cost a lot. It depends on what the engineer thinks and what he has to expose to satisfy himself that the structure is sound. You can help lessen the costs by clearing out some or all of your rooms and making certain that appliances can be moved if required.

If you have an attic or and a basement, now is a very good time for a clean-out. The garage too. Completely empty the attic, basement and garage so that the engineer can see what is going on and make sure that there is ample strong lighting for him to see by. If he has to bring in workers to do all this essential work for you, your bill will go up substantially.

Likewise, if he says that the foundations have to be exposed, offer to do the excavating yourself. Better still, have some friends and family on hand to do it there and then if you can so that he does not have to come back again. They charge by the hour and by the visit and you pay for travelling time.

Lastly, whether you are buying, selling or staying, get reports and warrantees for all the work carried out and keep those reports with the other important papers relating to your house.

A prospective purchaser will definitely be more impressed by these depositions and guarantees and so will your insurance company. Just bear in mind that, you would not want to live where there is severe termite damage and neither does anyone else.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with Termidor termite treatment - a termite killer. If you are interested in this or if you are wondering: What Does A Termite Look Like?. Please go to our web site now for some more details.