Pre-Purchase Timber Pest Inspections
The inspection you get before you buy is the cheapest part of the whole transaction and the only one that can stop you inheriting someone else’s termite damage. It is carried out and reported to AS 4349.3, the timber pest inspection standard.
Reported to AS 4349.3-2010
A pre-purchase timber pest inspection is carried out and reported to AS 4349.3-2010, Inspection of buildings — Timber pest inspections. That is the standard your contract, your broker and your solicitor will expect, and it is a different document from a building inspection. It covers termites, borers and wood decay fungi, and the conditions on the property that make them likely.
What is covered
- Interior of the building, room by room
- Roof void, where there is safe access
- Subfloor, where there is safe access
- Exterior, perimeter and slab edge
- Garage, carport, outbuildings and sheds
- Fences, retaining walls, stumps, decks, pergolas and trees within the property boundary
Thermal imaging and a moisture meter are used on every inspection, and photographs form part of the report.
Reading the report properly — three things buyers miss
Every timber pest report has one. If the subfloor was sealed, the roof void had no access hatch, or a room was full of the vendor’s stored goods, that area was not inspected and the report will say so. Buyers routinely read “no active termites found” and stop there. What that sentence means is “none found in the areas we could reach.”
Old damage from a colony treated a decade ago is a structural question for a builder or engineer. Live activity is an urgent pest question. A report should distinguish them clearly, and ours does.
No activity today plus soil above the slab edge, a leaking shower, timber in ground contact and blocked weep holes is a property that will have activity. The conducive conditions section tells you what you are buying into and what it will cost to fix.
On newer homes and termite systems
If the property was built from the 1990s onward it will have had a termite management system installed under AS 3660.1. Ask the agent for four things: which system, the installation date, the last inspection date, and the installer’s documentation. A chemical treated zone has a finite service life, and a physical barrier only works while it is unbroken — decks, sheds, pools, paths and raised garden beds added after handover are the usual breaches. If nobody can produce the paperwork, treat the property as unprotected until an inspection says otherwise.
Timing
Book the inspection as early in your cooling-off or building-and-pest condition period as you can. We report the same day wherever the run allows, so you have the findings in hand while you still have the contractual right to act on them.
Our services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. For major failures with the service, you are entitled: 1. to cancel your service contract with us; and 2. to a refund for the unused portion, or to compensation for its reduced value. You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. If the failure does not amount to a major failure you are entitled to have problems with the service rectified in a reasonable time and, if this is not done, to cancel your contract and obtain a refund for the unused portion of the contract.
Anything we offer below is in addition to those rights, not instead of them.
Frequently asked
How quickly can you get a report to me?
Same day wherever the run allows. Pre-purchase work is time-critical because your cooling-off or building-and-pest condition period is finite, so we prioritise it. Tell us your deadline when you book.
The report says no active termites. Am I safe to buy?
It says none were found in the areas that could be inspected. Read the inaccessible areas list and the conducive conditions section before you decide — a property with no activity but soil above the slab edge, a leaking shower and timber in ground contact is a property that will have activity. That section is the forecast, and it is the part buyers skip.
Do you inspect the shed and the fences too?
Yes. Timber pest inspection to AS 4349.3 covers the buildings plus fences, retaining walls, stumps, decks, pergolas and trees within the property boundary. Termites almost always arrive from something in the yard, so an inspection that stops at the house walls has missed the point of origin.
Where we do this work
Ready to get it handled?
Straight answer on the phone, fixed price in writing, and a technician who shows you what he found.