 Good evening and welcome to episode 308 of the Private Property Podcast. I'm your host Uzaman Dunwoa Kumailo. It's a Thursday edition of the Private Property Podcast and if you're joining us for the first time, welcome to the only daily property show in South Africa. Make sure that you go to our Facebook or our YouTube page to catch up with all the great content that you have already missed out on. And to all our regular viewers, whether it's on Facebook, on Instagram or on YouTube, welcome to it. You know how we do every single weekday. You and I have an appointment at 7 p.m. when we tackle the property topic and have an expert guest who helps us navigate our property journey. Doesn't matter where you are in your property journey, you could be looking to buy, to sell, or you might even be looking at a building. This is the show that is there to help you make better informed property decisions. And of course, we love hearing from you at home and certainly love seeing all the green huts that you sent down here. Make sure to also share this live if you're watching us on Facebook so we can make the property circle better and certainly see your friends and family will be able to see that this is what you are tuned into and watching this evening. I'm coming to you from a low shed house, so we low shed right now. So I want to apologize in advance if there's any delay of any kind. We know how the signal sometimes gets when there is low shedding, but so far it's been behaving and I do hope that it's going to stay behaving throughout the show. Talking about the show, you know that there are also great shows that you can look forward to at 8 p.m. across properties, social media pages. As it is a Thursday, you can catch a warning farmer, Umbalinoa or bringing you the farming podcast where every Tuesdays and Thursdays you're always in conversation with somebody within the agricultural sector dissecting one or other topic that has to do with better helping us understand the farming and agriculture and of course the value chain and even how you at home can get involved even in your backyard. So it's making farming as accessible as possible. And for those who are looking at exploring it from commercial perspective, certainly going to help you make better farming decisions. And every Mondays and Fridays, child takes us through exquisite properties that you can find on triple w.private property.co.za. And of course, one of the great things with the home shop is shows that if you are in the market for a property, especially those who might perhaps be in the market for some of the more expensive properties and even those that are slightly on the lower scale, you are able to get a really good sense of what you're able to get for that amount. So that certainly is a show that you do not want to miss out on Mondays and Fridays. And on Wednesdays, we don't leave you alone. It's the class that brings you the first time home buyers show, which is always in conversation with people who've not only walked that first time home buying journey, but have gone on to grow the property portfolios from string to string. If you want to get a good sense of how you can go from that wild first property and to growing your portfolio and adding more properties, that is a show that you do not want to miss out on. And that goes is only the great shows that you can look forward to every single weekday at 8pm here on the private property. But this evens conversation is one that I'm quite excited about. And one of the reasons why I'm excited about this conversation is we've spoken about it in different instances. And it's one of those topics I'll always keep coming back to because I think so many of us still don't have a good sense of what we can expect when this happens, why we should do it and really the big value that you get in the event that you do it. Probably wondering what I'm talking about. We are talking about home inspections. And I'm joined by John Graham, who's a property inspector and manager at House Check. John, good evening and thank you so much for joining us. Good evening, Zama. And thank you for having me on your show. It's only a pleasure, John. John is coming to us. We're talking about first coming to us from the western Cape. So they're cold and wet. I'm in Joerg. I'm in the dark. And it's also quite cold. Luckily, we don't get the rain. So it's going to be an interesting conversation as we explore winter and even some of the perks of home inspections, depending on the kind of climate you find yourself in because you'll find that searching properties are more prone to certain kinds of damage in certain areas. But John, before we get to those omitted gritties, I think first let's just look at the top end. When we talk about home inspections, what are we talking about? Because I think there's still so many people at home who think maybe this is one of those things that's only relevant for commercial properties. Or if I'm buying a property that's above, for example, 3m or 3.5m. But if I just want to buy a, you know, a small house that's million or 1.2 or perhaps even a property, this isn't something that I should even bother with. When we talk about home inspections, what exactly are we referring to? Okay, so I know what we're talking about with home inspection is basically a conditional assessment of the condition of the property that you buy in. And if you think that for most people, whether they're spending a million rand or 10 billion rand in a house, that purchase is probably one of the biggest that they will ever make. And it's quite a complex thing, a property. It has hot water geysers. It has roofing systems, waterproofing systems. It's got to manage stormwater so that the water doesn't flood in your door. And it's got to be compliant. Most people who buy a house have home owners insurance. And the thing with homeowner's insurance is that insurance companies, unlike a life insurance company, a homeowner's insurance company only really underwrites their risk at claim stage. So when you buy a property, you take a bond and part of the bond is they say you must ensure your house in case it burns down. And then a couple of years later, there's a hail storm and portion of the roof collapses or whatever. And at that stage, the insurance company sends a necessity to have a look. How much is the damage and is the claim valid? Or was it going to be repudiated? And quite often people find that the claim is repudiated because the house was not compliant. The Giza was not compliantly installed. The roof was not compliantly installed. Now, South Africa has got really fine building regulations and national building standards. And part of a home inspector is to ensure that the house is compliant. But also that people know what they're buying that damp has not been hidden away. That there's not a fresh coat of paint disguising a whole lot of things that you really should know about. And I always say, and then I'll sort of complete my introduction is that consumer protection is incredibly important in South Africa. But probably the home buying consumer is the most vulnerable of all consumers, because most properties are still sold foods to us, which means it's sold as is that let the buyer be aware in terms of what they're buying. And a home inspector can protect buyers can protect sellers and can make the entire property transaction process a lot more transparent and trustworthy for all parties concerned. And you know, John actually wants us to then look at what actually goes into a home inspection with inspectors coming in. So when you go into a property, what are some of the key things that you are looking at as you do your home inspection. And because one of the things that I find is people often sitting in the beginning stages, they'll look at the artificial stuff, right? So things that we can see with the naked eye, and then assume that that is necessarily sufficient, because it looks good. And when you open the doors, you open the taps, everything looks relatively okay. Therefore, there's no need for an inspection. Perhaps shed light on what inspectors are essentially looking at almost at a high level. I know it's actually quite an extensive process. And just so viewers able to get a sense of the deeper level that home inspection would typically take versus what we would do when we, for example, just go and view a property or even when we go and do a second viewer. Yeah, I think the first thing is to ask you viewers, would they buy a secondhand car without getting a mechanic or the AA to check it out and make and obviously with a secondhand car, you also need a roadworthy certificate. A lot of people do just that. They don't go in with the mechanic. It looks great. It's shiny. And that's probably why car sales people will always make sure the car looks clean. And they're like, they'll start it. It starts quick to go and they buy it. Two days later, it starts falling apart. So we already know that we do that, right? Yeah. Okay, so you asked the question, what do we look for? Will all houses, once you've inspected a few hundred houses and you understand how they built, as you climb out your car, you can see what's likely to be wrong with that house, depending on what type of roof covering, what the ground looks like, etc. But one of the biggest problems is the hot water geyser. In South Africa, most hot water geysers are located in the roof cavity. And no one but no one gets into a South African roof cavity because it's hot and it's uncomfortable and it's dirty. And a geyser sits above your child's bedroom. It's under pressure. It hasn't been installed properly because maybe the plumber didn't even go up. He sent one of his laborers up and he didn't check there about between 20 and 25 critical points of installation of a hot water geyser, from the electrical connections to the plumbing connections to the relief valves to the overflow trays. And you physically have to get into the into the roof space to see that. And then while you're in the roof space, you're looking at the structural timbers. Are they straight? Has the roof been properly anchored down? Is the insulation in place? Can you can you see roof leaks? Are there paintings in the roof to catch the rainwater? All of that sort of stuff. Inside the house, you're looking at damp penetration through the seals of the windows. You're looking at whether there is safe glazing, whether the glass is thin three ball glass, or in areas where there's likely to be human impact with a with a glass pane, the National Building Regulations say there must be safety glass in order to protect human life. So Home Inspector will look at that he will he will typically if he goes into a bathroom and sees a shower there, and now the shower is tired, so he can't tell whether there whether there's been waterproofing behind the tiles before the tiles were inserted. But he can go into the next door room and open the built-in cupboard and see if there's evidence of damp in there, because it has a real wet damp. He will use his moisture meter to see about pipes which are inside the wall. He will he will look he's not a qualified electrician, but he will look for obviously dangerous situations with electrical wiring. He will look at the at the plumbing. He will look at the roof covering. He will look literally everywhere. And one of the things that they've noticed internationally is wall cracks. Wall cracks are a bug there for people buying a house and also for people selling a house. Because you get a great many wall cracks which are settlement cracks which occur over the first couple of years as the load of the house settles down into the earth. And then it stabilizes. So if if I'm buying a house and I don't know much about houses and I walk in and I see there's a crack in the entrance hall, I say, Horrors. It might be structural. It might only cost a thousand round to redecorate, but I'm going to offer a hundred thousand round less because I don't know what's involved there. Whereas a home inspector will be able to look and say it is serious. There's been foundation failure. It is simply a plaster crack. It's a movement crack that's that ceased. Same the same with damp. You get rising damp. You get black mold in the bedrooms in the bathroom. Sometimes something because people sleep with their windows closed other times because it's a serious damp issue. So it's all of those sort of things. There's there's nothing that a good home inspector won't look at. If if I might say, I will say a good analogy is to use the medical profession. If you feel sick, you normally go to your GP, your general practitioner and you say, I'm not feeling well. I'm running at temperature and I've got a bit of a runny nose or whatever. And in the pre COVID days, at least, he would say, open your mouth and he would he would look down your throat and he would take your temperature and feel your glands and he would say, take two aspirin, go to bed for a couple of days and you'll find if you'll find or alternatively, he might look down your throat and say, Oh, big problem here. I suggest you go and see an ear nose and throat specialist or cancer specialist or lung specialist or whatever, because there's something here that I'm worried about. Now home inspectors a bit like the GP. He's not a specialist. He's not a structural engineer. He's not an electrician. He's not a plumber. He's not a waterproofer, but he needs to know something about just like the GP knows about the human body. The home inspector needs to know something about every aspect of a South African home. He needs to know what the law says. He needs to know what the insurance how insurance companies will view that property in the event of a claim. He needs to know what the buyer what the seller might be covering up. He needs to be able to tell the buyer how much is it going to cost to fix this house? How much is it needs to be spent urgently? And how much can you budget to you for maintenance over the next three, four years? So it enables buyers and sellers to make informed decisions. I am this evening in conversation with John Graham, who's a property inspector and manager and looking at home inspections. I can see some of you are watching us. I'm one of our top fan gang members. I see there's a fellow who's also watching us and I certainly want to find out from your home what your experience has been when it comes to doing home inspections. Have you ever done a home inspection before? Or is it something that you were either not aware of at all? And or have you, for example, encountered an instance where you bought a property and now retrospectively realised that had you actually done a home inspection, it would have probably saved you a bit of money because you ended up finding out issues with the property once you had already bought it. Do share your views down here below. I absolutely love hearing from you. Now, John, I think one of the things that I want to, you know, explore and I'll ask both questions at the same time because I know that they may actually, you know, link with each other quite well. The first one is what are some of the key things that typically get snagged during home inspection that you found that overwhelmingly, like these are the key things that a lot of homes typically have that needs to be fixed, right? And the second question is what are some of the mistakes that home owners make in the, we'll say, management or maintenance or lack thereof of their properties that ends up getting to a stage where when a home inspector comes in, that then becomes a snag. So I think they may probably be overlaps with the two, so that's why I didn't want to separate them. Okay, let's start at the roof summer. One of the problems of the roof is the roof drainage system, which is typically the gutters and the downpipes. And if you have trees growing too close to a house and it's filled with and leaves and debris and branches fall on that roof, particularly if it's a metal roof, you will start getting rust and you will get the gutters blocked and the overloading of the gutters, they will start leaking at the joints. And that's a maintenance issue that very often is totally neglected until the gutter is pouring water and it's waking you up at night because it's so loud. And it's something that's very easy to fix. But typically it's only when a home inspector gets out his ladder and climbs on the roof and takes a few photographs that people realise what the what the state of the roof is actually like. And that it should have been painted four or five years ago, the roof screw should have been resealed. If you've got a concrete tile roof, often the ridge capping, the dugout, the cement will have cracked and you'll start getting water penetration along the ridges of the roof. And that might be because the ridging was put on on a very hot day and the and the dugout, the cement dried out too quickly and so the cement cracked away from the concrete roof tiles or it might simply be wear and tear. And then you would often find if you get on a roof like that, you'd see that they've used some sort of acrylic membrane to patch that roofing. Now there's acrylic membrane and there's acrylic membrane. Some of it is S-A-B-S approved. A lot of it is cheap imports in South Africa. And with the harsh South African sun, if you use the wrong sort of patching material, it will crack and you need to recode it every year. So that's a typical sort of combination of an issue which can be arrested. Roof drainage and roof covering and which should be maintained and often is not maintained. Damp is an issue. Let's stay with the roof drainage. You have the water running, falling on your roof into the gutters and down the downpipe. But what happens when it comes out of the downpipe? It should be channeled away from the structure either with an impervious apron or with a concrete channel. But very often you'll find that downpipe finishing up at the base of the walls in a flower bed or unprotected soil. And if you look there, what a home inspector will suspect as soon as he sees that is that the foundation will over the last couple of years have been undermined because the water seeps under the foundations, washes out the fine particles of soil and the foundation begins to collapse, resulting in cracks on the inside. So the home inspector will look at the outside and say there's probably a crack on the inside here because of the poor maintenance and because of the poor management of storm water. A floor level in a South African home by law must be a minimum of 150 mls above the finished ground level. But what often happens is that people build a house and only put in paving later. And then the paving is about the same height as a floor level. And so you have a flooding issue, but you also have this thing called dam proof course, which is an impervious layer of malchoid or plastic that stops the water seeping up from the ground into the walls and causing efflorescence and all sorts of ugly damp. But if your finished ground level over the years has been built up with landscaping or paving or whatever, you might find that the outside level is actually higher than the dam proof course. Yeah. And that you even find that with a lot of people who even built even back rooms that they don't put that. And even I've seen it again in suburbs where they actually don't put I've seen it it's black you kind of put it you know close to the foundation and then they built on it. They don't put that there. And then they always have issues of you know damp in their rooms where they don't quite know why is there rising damp. And there's nothing you know particularly wrong for example with the with the yard or the spacing. But it's because that sort of waterproofing component wasn't wasn't put there. But John you you're still seeing some of the key things that you typically get get you know picked up in a home inspection that some when some of it certainly stuff that access home owners can try to prevent because if you're maintaining your property well over the years then it's not going to get to the point where it's something that would get snagged during a home inspection. Yeah another thing is is ceramic four tiles. If you putting in four tiles there's thermal expansion which means when it gets hot the tiles expand slightly and when it when it gets cold they contract. But you need to have an expansion joint in a typical room and that's normally built under the skirting board. If that doesn't happen the tiles will press against each other and tend to tend to upwards and might crack. But coming back to the damp proof course how critical that is. Sometimes builders do install a plastic barrier damp proof course but they don't install it right through so that it extends under the plaster. In other words a brick layer lays a brick and the plastics under the brick but there's another 20 moles that's going on the outside with the plaster and that goes straight into the ground which means that the most you can wick up from the ground through the plaster bypass the plastic barrier and you wonder why you've got you've got a damp issue. Not all low down damp is rising damp from a lack of a damp proof course. It's possible that the roof is leaking and that the water is finding itself a longer after and into a top of a wall and down through the cavity and is manifesting as it hits the floor slab at the bottom. So a lot of experience and a lot of training in how houses are built is needed for a home inspector to be the GP of the of the South African home and say this is what's wrong this is where specialist investigation is needed this is easy to fix this is not so easy to fix and so that the buyer can then then shape the offer accordingly. If I might say one of the things that we recommended house check is that no one should put an offer to purchase without making it conditional on a satisfactory home inspection and generally speaking the home inspection will be paid for by the buyer sometimes a seller or even a state agent will pay for it but in South Africa at house check probably 95 percent of our inspections are funded by the buyer because the buyer has most to lose if there's a problem. So the buyer typically say I want to buy this house I'm going to offer 2.2 million subject to a satisfactory home inspection and then if you wise also subject to the approved plans of the house being made available to me. If you're buying in a sectional title property subject to me having sight of the financials of the body corporate and subject to me having sight of the 10 year maintenance plan which is required by the sectional title schemes management act. So there are a lot of things that a buyer can do to protect themselves but the average buyer is a school teacher or or a clerk or whatever he might be and does not know the property law and can and can make expensive mistakes which come back to bite them later. And you know John I've certainly also made some of those expensive mistakes in my own property journey and and I've had to learn the hard way I think one of the the things that actually jumped out when you're talking about some of the clauses that should potentially put in in terms of you know the home inspection being done and particularly the the approved home plans. One of the things I've encountered often far too often is people do a lot of extensions you know in their respective properties and house plans were not drawn up and approved and you come in and you want to buy and sometimes it very well you know the bond will pass so the bank may not actually be asked for you know for the house plans and as you've pointed out then something happens and you you know want to claim from insurance and insurance actually realizes that but this is not the original structure and the way that this has actually gone and been built you know it would have been raised if it went through all the the proper channels and I think more than anything it points to how there are just so many different factors that we often need to think about and I think even for people for example are looking to buy a piece of land and that's just by itself we're seeing in different suburbs there's just you know searching pieces of land you know I you know John I did a course building construction and the during the course there's a part where you're doing you're looking at soil and the different kinds of soil and how in your how they're in the region this is a typical type of soil we find and then in different parts of the country these are the typical kinds of soil if you're going to have you know clay type soil or this kind of soil and you're building on the slope these are some of the you know limitations or these are the reinforcements that you need to you know put in and the reality is so many of us wouldn't know this you just see a piece of land you're thinking this is fantastic it's got a great view it's even on the you know on the cliff not understanding that there are so many things behind the scenes that are at play before you even buy that piece of land to build on and always slowly running out of time John before I let you go on to find out what can we then do as homeowners in particular because I think we first want to deal with those homeowners that will make sure that over the years of our home ownership journey or having that particular property we don't end up having a property that's going to have issues that are that a home inspector would you know pick up and this could be because you don't obviously want to end up 10 years from now having a huge bull and a whole host of things that you need to address or even when you're now ready to buy I mean sell that particular property obviously also don't want to get an instance where a home inspector comes and snags all sorts of things that had you just diligently done certain things over the years you are not going to find yourself in that situation so what are some of the low hanging fruits as home owners that we can already start regularly doing to better maintain our properties so that we don't have issues when it comes to burn inspections okay probably the main the main thing is to maintain your roof because your roof is the most vulnerable part of the house and the old story a stitch in time saves nine that's what my grandmother talked talked my my sisters didn't teach me because I could never learn to knit or ought to sew but preventative maintenance on a regular basis costs a lot less than emergency maintenance you know we spoke about the leaves in the gutter cleaning the leaves out the gutter is a whole lot cheaper to do that to once a month than it is to wait for the gutter to collapse and have to to replace it managing water away from your foundations is another one making sure that that your geezer is in good shape that overflow pipes are properly connected all of those are obvious ones looking after storm water management something else that is what it mentions I know we're running out of time but boundary walls are a huge problem in South Africa and and the reason for that is a boundary wall technically is what they call a freestanding wall and the freestanding wall means that it's not as strong as a cellular wall put your room in a house there four corners and the wall and each each wall supports other wall but if you build a boundary wall you it's unstable so you need supporting peers you cannot put in a damp proof course because then you've got no grip onto the foundations and the law says if it's over 2.1 meters there must be approved plans and the municipality won't pass plans until the the foundation in the wall is being designed by a structural engineer but when I was a kid a wall fell on myself and my sister I got up quite lightly I broke my leg she smashed to I think I was three she was four it was a cold shed wall in Joberg and she spent six months in hospital with a crushed pelvis and simply because it was an unstable wall and sometimes in storms because of lack of weep holes and in wind walls fall down and kids get hurt and those are the sort of things that one needs to look at is your property legal is your property well maintained just like a wise car owner gets a car regularly serviced it makes it makes sense to make sure that you are you are servicing the biggest investment in your in your life and with the property practitioner's act coming into into effect the property practitioner's act is going to be a game changer because sellers are then going to have to make it a written declaration of the condition of the property and the estate agent is going to buy law going to have to provide that written declaration to every prospective purchaser and that becomes part of their legal agreement of sale now the easiest way around that is for the seller to say let's get a home inspector in first and let's do full disclosure we'll probably get a better price because the purchaser will trust us because we're not hiding anything we have an independent inspection and we can negotiate realistically and nothing's going to come back and bite us in the backside so but the property practitioners act was passed in 2019 we now halfway through 2021 the draft regulations were published before lockdown last year they closed republished after lockdown they closed for comment in November last year we now sitting in July the next year and still nothing and so property purchases are vulnerable until the law will protect them and perhaps even afterwards because it's one thing having a law it's another thing to enforce a law and in South Africa I think we have great laws but our enforcement is not so great the home inspector's canister student and I think John that's such a great note to leave it at that you want to make sure that you take care of your investment and this isn't just for property investors but even your whole you maintain it regularly don't wait until the very end you already know that you have to service your car every 8000 kilometers I don't know how many kilometers it is because I'm very terrible with cars generally but you know that you regularly have to maintain your car and so similarly with your home whether it's even an apartment or of course a freestanding house there are certain things that need to be maintained on a regular basis so you don't find yourself in a situation where there's now a crisis that there are too many things that have gone wrong John we're going to leave it there this evening thank you so much for being with us on the show thank you Zama pleasure to be here and thank you for having me goodnight and that was and there is John Graham who is a property inspector and manager at house chick wrapping up the Thursday edition of the private property podcast with myself Uzaman Dunwo Komilo I'll be back on your screens tomorrow evening at 7 p.m it is a Thursday so you can catch a award winning farmer Umbali Nwaka on the farming podcast at 8 p.m until then hoping you stay home and staying safe you're welcome home shop the show and what a special month this month is going to be we've just come back from touring the mother city and showing you some of the most opulent homes that Cape Town has to offer now we started off in Constantia thereby the hotels under wine on touring a beautiful home that crested and overlooked all of the mountain ranges in Cape Town from there we shot across down to Blowburg and showed you what a seaside home looks like we also went to Vulgar View to the place where everybody likes to relax enjoy the view enjoy the time and we showed you a home that I say it's architecture only quite is beaten by the decor of that home we also went into the University Town of Stelenbosch it was an incredible desalza estate and then we came all the way back to the famous Camps Bay to show you what being a millionaire and living in Camps Bay in Cape Town feels and looks like guys there's so much to show you there was so much to do and so much that we spoke about so make sure you tune in every Monday and every Friday at 8pm on Facebook by the property the home shopper show see you there