A building and pest inspection is the cheapest insurance in the whole transaction — typically $400 to $700 in Sydney for a combined report, against a purchase of hundreds of thousands.
What most buyers get wrong isn't whether to get one. It's when to get it, and what to do with what it says.
Timing is everything
The inspection is only useful while you still have options.
Buying by private treaty with a cooling-off period: you have five business days from exchange — ten if you're buying off-the-plan. That's enough time to get an inspection done and act on it, but only if you book it immediately. Good inspectors across Sydney book out days ahead in a busy market. Don't exchange on Friday and start ringing inspectors on Wednesday.
Buying at auction: there is no cooling-off period. None. If the hammer falls, you're bound on the spot. Any inspection has to happen before auction day, at your own cost, on a property you may not win. That's the price of bidding, and it's why auction campaigns are expensive for serious buyers.
Making an offer before exchange: the best position of all. You can make the offer subject to a satisfactory inspection, or simply get the inspection done before you sign anything.
What the report actually covers
A building inspection is a visual assessment of accessible areas — structure, roof, walls, floors, wet areas, drainage, and obvious defects. A pest inspection looks for termites and other timber pests, plus conditions likely to attract them.
Two things worth understanding clearly.
It's visual and non-invasive. The inspector doesn't cut into walls or lift floorboards. Anything concealed stays concealed. A clear report means nothing was visible — not that nothing is there.
It's not a valuation and not a compliance check. It won't tell you whether the property is worth the price, and it won't confirm whether the extension had approval. That last one is a different question, answered by the planning certificate attached to the contract and sometimes by a council records search.
Reading the report properly
Almost every report on almost every property lists defects. A long list is not, by itself, a reason to walk away.
Sort what you find into three buckets:
Structural. Movement, subsidence, significant cracking, roof framing problems. These are expensive and sometimes unfixable at any sensible cost. Take them seriously.
Active termites or major damage. Not automatically fatal — treatment and repair are well-understood — but you need a specific quote, not a general reassurance.
Maintenance. Perished sealant, a dripping tap, tired paintwork, a gutter that needs clearing. This is what houses are. Every property has a list.
The mistake goes both ways: buyers walk away from good properties over a maintenance list, and buyers proceed on structural problems because the agent said it was "normal for the age".
What you can do with the findings
Before exchange: negotiate. Reduce the price, ask for repairs before settlement, or ask for a retention held at settlement until work is completed. You have leverage here.
During cooling-off: you can rescind, but you forfeit 0.25% of the purchase price to the vendor — $250 for every $100,000, so $2,000 on an $800,000 purchase. Worth it against a structural problem; not worth it against a list of maintenance.
After cooling-off expires, or after an auction purchase: your options narrow sharply. The standard contract does not make the sale conditional on an inspection you never did. This is the situation to avoid, and it's avoided entirely by timing.
Strata properties
For a unit, a building and pest inspection is less central — the structure is the owners corporation's responsibility, and repairs to it are funded by levies from every owner, including you. Inside the lot is still your problem, and timber pests don't respect strata boundaries.
What matters far more is the strata report: the scheme's finances, the state of its capital works fund, upcoming special levies, defect history, and whether the building is in dispute with a builder. A beautifully renovated apartment in a building facing a seven-figure remediation bill is a bad purchase, and the strata report is where you find that out.
We've written separately about the red flags to look for in a strata report.
Where we fit in at Malko Conveyancing
Malko Conveyancing doesn't carry out inspections — that's a licensed inspector's job, and you want one who is independent of the agent.
What we do is make sure the timing works. When you engage us early, we'll tell you exactly how long you have, what the contract permits, and what your position is if the report comes back badly. Where findings justify it, we negotiate the contract accordingly.
The buyers who get caught are almost always the ones who engaged a conveyancer after exchange rather than before. Book a free 15-minute call before you're committed to anything.
Tanya Kats is the Director of Malko Conveyancing and a Licensed Conveyancer in NSW. This article is general information and not legal advice for any specific matter.