First Look

First inspection questions in the ACT

The first walk through a Canberra house or unit is a poor time to rely on memory. Agents move quickly, light flatters paint, and the Crown lease is not sitting open on the kitchen bench. Harriet’s list is for the hour you are in the rooms and the hour after, when you write down what you still need from the contract bundle. It is not a building inspection, and it is not a promise that a house is sound.

Take the draft contract if the agent will hand it over, or ask when it will be ready. In the ACT a residential property is not meant to be offered without a contract that carries the required documents. You are not expected to interpret every page in the hallway. You are expected to notice what you can see, and to mark what you cannot.

• Confirm the street address against the block, section and division on the contract front.
• Walk every room, including the garage, the laundry and any room the door was closed on.
• Look up. Stains on a ceiling tell you to ask about the roof, not to diagnose it.
• Look down. Springy floors, fresh silicone and new carpet edges are questions, not verdicts.
• Run taps and note low pressure. Do not take a fitting apart.
• Find the Energy Efficiency Rating statement in the bundle and read the date and the rating assumptions.
• Ask which building and pest reports are included, and the date each report was prepared.
• Ask whether those reports name a reliance period, and whether you are inside it.
• Photograph cracks, windows and the meter box for your notes. Ask before you photograph people.
• If it is a unit, ask for the units plan number and whether the courtyard or car space is on title or common property.
• Write three questions for a licensed inspector. This page does not supply the inspection.
• Write three questions for your conveyancer that came from the walk, not from a template alone.

Before the appointment

Book the visit in daylight if you can. A weeknight torch tour hides the colour of damp and the fall of the yard. Read the listing once, then put it away. Listings describe a life. The contract describes a lease, inclusions, and a price. Your job on site is to see the building that is actually there.

If you are buying with someone else, split the rooms. One person takes wet areas and the switchboard door. The other takes ceilings, windows and the outside. Swap for ten minutes so two pairs of eyes see the same crack. Agree a signal for “write this down” so you are not debating a stain in front of the agent.

Check what the contract says is included. Light fittings, a dishwasher, a garden shed and a solar system are frequent arguments because people remember the brochure and forget the schedule. If a fitting is in the room and not on the list, ask. If it is on the list and not in the room, ask. Do not accept “they’ll sort it at settlement” as a complete answer. Write the item down and give the note to the conveyancer.

Parking and access matter in inner neighbourhoods and in newer Molonglo streets alike. Walk the path from the car to the door with a bag in your hand. If the block slopes, look at where water would travel in a storm. You are not designing drainage. You are deciding whether to ask a building inspector and, later, whether the lease or an approval covers a retaining wall that looks new.

What you can see, and what belongs in a report

A hairline crack above a door can be ordinary movement or a sign of something a structural report should discuss. You will not know which from a Saturday visit. Photograph it, measure it against a coin so the scale is honest, and put it on the inspector’s list. The same goes for a soft patch in a bathroom floor, a musty robe, or a window that will not latch. None of those observations is a diagnosis. They are reasons to pay a person who is allowed to make one.

Access Canberra material that often sits with an ACT contract includes a building file flavour of documents: occupancy, plans, and the story of approvals. A Lease Conveyancing Inquiry is the companion that speaks to the lease side: breaches, development applications, heritage, outstanding rent under the Crown lease if any is recorded, and related searches. You may not hold both in your hand at the first open home. Ask the agent which of them is already in the draft contract and which date they carry. If the inquiry is old, ask your conveyancer whether a fresh one should be ordered. Do not guess that “old” is fine because the garden looked tidy.

Pest reports and building reports supplied by a seller can be useful and can also be stale. Many reports say who may rely on them and for how long. If you are outside that period, budget in your own mind for a new report rather than treating the stapled one as yours. Zenith Lens does not sell those reports and does not employ inspectors. We will not tell you a house is clear of termites because a PDF from last spring said so.

Energy efficiency and the rooms you actually live in

An Energy Efficiency Rating statement is part of the ordinary ACT contract bundle for a residential sale. Read the number and read the assumptions. A rating is a model of the building, not a promise about your power bill. Orientation, curtains, a west window and a room over the garage all change how a winter morning feels. Stand in the main bedroom at the time of day you would wake up, if the appointment allows it. Open a window and see if it stays open. Ask whether the heating you see is included, and whether the rating paperwork mentions the system that is actually on the wall.

In a unit, the rating of the apartment is not the whole of the cost of living there. Owners corporation contributions, insurance arranged by the corporation, and any special purpose fund sit in the unit title sale certificate, not in the EER. Do not let a strong rating talk you out of reading that certificate. Do not let a modest rating, by itself, talk you out of a well-built room. Ask questions. Then let the inspector and the conveyancer do the jobs they are retained for.

Outside, look at fences and at who seems to own them. A fence on the boundary can be a neighbour question. A pergola that feels recent can be an approval question. Photograph the meter, the hot water unit and the outdoor unit of any air conditioner, including labels, so you can ask whether they are owned, leased, or common property. Leased equipment sometimes appears in a conversation and not in the inclusions schedule. That mismatch is a conveyancer question.

Questions worth leaving with

Before you drive away, stand on the footpath and say the address out loud against your note. Wrong-block mix-ups happen when two open homes share an afternoon. Write the agent’s name and the time you attended. If you go back for a second look, take the same list and add only what changed. A second coat of paint overnight is information.

Three questions are enough to start an inspector: what did you see in the wet areas, what did the ceiling stains line up with in the roof space if you could enter it, and which items look unapproved rather than merely tired. Three for the conveyancer: do the inclusions match the rooms, is the building file consistent with the extension you stood in, and does the lease purpose match a house, a unit, or something narrower. If the sale is heading toward a short cooling-off waiver, do not let the pleasant kitchen rush that decision. The section 17 certificate, if someone asks for one, is a lawyer’s document about cooling-off, not a reward for liking the light.

Leave with a list, not a feeling you have already bought it. Offers, deposits and exchange belong in the contract conversation. This visit was for your eyes and your notes.

What this page does not do