The duty to manage asbestos does not apply to a private dwelling, so nobody is legally required to survey their own house. Homeowners buy surveys anyway, and almost always for one of three reasons: a builder has refused to start without one, a sale has raised the question, or something suspect has been found mid job. The survey is the same instrument as a commercial one, pointed at a smaller building.
When a house genuinely needs one
Before refurbishment or demolition work that will break into the fabric, because the identification duty attaches to the work rather than to the premises and the contractor doing it has duties of their own. When a builder has stopped at suspect material. When a mortgage valuer or a buyer's surveyor has flagged it. And when a homeowner simply wants to know what is in the house before planning anything.
Which survey type
For living in the house, a management survey covers what could be disturbed in normal use. For any work, a refurbishment and demolition survey of the area being worked on is the right purchase, because the management survey is not allowed to open what the builder will open. Buying the cheaper one before building work is the classic false economy here.
What it costs and covers
Domestic surveys are priced from the number of rooms, floors, lofts, cellars and outbuildings, plus the sample allowance. A three bedroom house with a loft, a garage and an outbuilding is a bigger job than the same house without them. Ask what the included sample count is and what an extra costs.
Common parts of flats
A flat is a dwelling and the duty to manage does not reach inside it. The common parts of the block are non-domestic premises and the duty does reach them, so stairwells, plant rooms, roof spaces and service risers should be surveyed and on a register held by whoever maintains them.
Questions people ask about residential asbestos survey
Do I have to survey my house before selling?
No. There is no duty to survey or to remove asbestos from a private home before a sale, and buyers usually want to know what is there and its condition rather than to see it gone.
Will a homebuyer survey find asbestos?
A building survey may note suspect materials and it is not an asbestos survey and does not sample. If the report says presumed asbestos, that is a prompt for a proper analysis rather than a finding.
Is a domestic survey cheaper?
Usually, because there are fewer spaces and fewer samples. It is the same method and the same standards.