On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:02:44 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In my experience, no wiring inspection is performed in the case
of a "full survey". Indeed, the state of all services is explicitly
excluded from a full survey. If the surveyor happens to notice
something extremely obvious like a bit of rubber wire with the
insulation all fallen off, you _might_ just get a comment along
the lines of "Some deteroration to the wiring was noticed in the
loft, and we would recommend that you engage a speciallist company
to carry out a more detailed inspection".

Indeed. It must be one of the easiest job's in the world. Walk round
the house and note if it has gas, electricty, water etc. Return to the
office, click the boxes (yes/no and - if they bought the expensive
version of the software "did it look dodgy") on the input form and press
print.

The software then prints out one paragraph based on your above for each
"present" with either "Some deterioration" or "No deterioration", and
with "and" or "but" after the comma.

I always assume they pay a backhander to the building society and the
whole thing is a joint con to take money off the householder. I was
reinforced in this view when the last time I did this they found
something that wasn't entirely standard and bugged out with the final
clause in the software "You must employ a structural engineer".

Now that was a different story: I got a detailed and accurate report
which found a fault that the surveyer had missed, said good things as
well (ie, instead of "the masonary is over 10 years old and may require
repointing" I got "the masonary is in good condition for its age").
Also, significantly, he charged less for the real job than the BS
employed surveyor had charged for his idle stroll. Since then I'd pay
for the absolute minimum that the BS require - viewing it as an
additional charge on getting the mortgage and of no other value - and
employ a SE for my own information.

I've decided "surveyor" in this context is based on survey in the old
sense of "cast an eye over".
--
On-line canal route planner: http://www.canalplan.org.uk

(Waterways World site of the month, April 2001)