As a homeowner, it is your right to know all there is to know about your property. But many Australians have no idea of who a surveyor is and what they do.

Surveyors are tasked with preparing construction sites and updating property boundary lines. They provide builders and homeowners with data relevant to the contour and shape of the surface of the Earth amongst other things.

Only survey maps made by licensed surveyors can efficiently define your property. One of the most important steps before buying or selling landed properties is to survey the said property to know exactly what you’re getting into.

There are a variety of reasons to hire a surveyor, including:

1. Define Boundary Lines

One of the most common reasons for hiring a surveyor is to define boundary lines. It’s generally a good idea for you to know the location of your property’s boundary lines before commencing any sort of construction or improvements.

You’d be surprised by the number of neighbours operating under false assumptions regarding the placement of boundary lines between properties.

2. Determine Easements and Rights-of-way

There are situations when your property might be blocking or hindering your neighbour’s access to the road or street.

In such cases an easement might come into play, giving your neighbour the right to make use of small parts of your property to gain access to the road.

3. Certify Existing Improvements

A surveyor can be called upon to certify whether buildings and improvements made at the time of the survey are in violation of building codes and local ordinances.

More often than not, there are restrictions on buildings such as height, limits on suburban fences and the like.

4. Draft Property Map

Surveys are necessary for drafting precise property maps, informing you of everything within your property.

Property maps also help you know the exact shape, size, orientation and boundaries of your property. This information is important when making decisions concerning construction and improvements.

5. Inspect Building Plans

In order to ensure that your building plan conforms to all the relevant local building regulations and ordinances, you need a certified surveyor to inspect and give your structure the green light.

There’s nothing worse than being forced to tear down parts of or entire structures because of failure to comply with building guidelines.

6. Issue Development Certificates

Before you can begin constructing a building on your property, you must first obtain a construction or development certificate.

A development certificate certifies that your construction specifications and plans are consistent with that of the Building Code of Australia.

Surveyors are there to pre-inspect your building plans.

7. Locate Underground Utilities Structures

Surveyors inform you about important utility structures, such as underground cables, pipes and manhole covers.

Before undertaking any important excavations or landscape changes, it’s important to know what may or may not be under your property in order to avoid headaches in the future.

8. Property Valuation

More often than not, mortgage companies require a survey taken on properties before lending money.

For homeowners, it’s always a good idea to know the exact value of your property. For home buyers, surveying a potential property is important before making a purchase.

9. Prepare Homebuyers Report

For most people, purchasing a landed property is the largest amount of money they’ll ever spend on a single purchase.

A large number of potential home buyers go for the cheapest property surveys in order to secure a mortgage on their property, but this has proven to be a very bad idea.

Home buyers reports are used to assess whether or not a property is a reasonable purchase at the agreed upon price.

10. Evaluate Property Structure

Before purchasing a property, it’s important to check the general condition of the building. Any significant faults that can affect the building’s value should be accessed by your surveyor.

A structural evaluation should be carried out in most houses. They are a very important step in buying or selling a property.

When you evaluate the structural integrity of a building, you can make informed decisions concerning finances.

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The world we live in is a constantly changing one and we as a species have numerous contingencies in place for many situations to make sure that life is as easy as possible.

The ready-made standard house design is one of those contingencies. This contingency enables homeowners to easily get home designs without having to make use of an Architect.

What more and more homeowners have noticed is that its kind of hard to transform your vision of the house you really want into a reality with standard readymade designs.

In order to effectively create your dream home you need to choose architecturally designed houses because they give you the opportunity to build the type of home you really want.

You’re going to be living in your house for a really long time. You don’t want to spend the next couple of decades of your life knowing full well that your home isn’t at the level you want it to be.

Below are a few reasons to choose an Architecturally- Designed home. The reasons include:

• A home that suits your lifestyle
• Potential increase on the estimated value of your home
• Environmentally conscious home
• You can control the total cost of your home
• Work spaces that suit you

A home that suits your lifestyle

Architectural designs enable home owners to get exactly what they want in their homes and leave out what they don’t want.

Architectural designs enable you to custom build and design your home to your particular taste. With such designs you get to own a house that suits your specific lifestyle, nothing more nothing less.

By architecturally designing your home you don’t have to adjust your house to existing standards that have the potential to stifle the design and subsequent construction of your home.

Potential increase on the estimated value of your home

When architecturally designing your home, you can work with your architect to add features that attract potential buyers. This will also increase the value of your home.

You can also leave out features that repel potential buyers thereby making sure that you give your home all it needs to earn you a lot on the resale market should the time come that you decide to sell your house.

Architecturally designing your home would set your house apart from every other house in your neighbourhood thereby giving you and your home an edge over the competition.

Environmental factors

The planet we live in deserves all the care in the world and the only way to ensure that your building isn’t in any way hurting our dear planet is to oversee the materials used during the construction phase of building.

When designing your home, your architect will make an account of all the relevant environmental factors and considerations. After your architect accesses these issues, you can rest assured that your internal living environment will be as comfortable as possible.

Constructing your house with biodegradable and easily renewable materials is the best decision you’ll ever make.

You can control the total cost of your home

As anyone who has ever owned a home will tell you, the cost of building a house can run up beyond your wildest expectations. The last thing you want is to end up spending more than yu planned for or more than you have.

You can alleviate the problem of having the cost of your home run up by designing your home to make use of only the most cost-effective building materials.

You can also architecturally alter the total cost of your home by making it smaller or constructing it with materials that have a longer useful lifespan.

Work spaces that suit you

The number of people that work from home has increased sporadically during the last two decades and it seems like that trend is going to continue for a while longer.

In the spirit of getting work done from home, architecturally designed homes give you the opportunity to include the type of workspaces that is most conducive to getting work done.

This is a feature that may or may not be available on houses with readymade designs. It’s safe to assume that architecturally designed homes are the future of residential construction.

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