House inspection, before you buy or at handover

How much a house inspection costs

The same four packages as for an apartment, each including everything in the previous one, with prices for houses in four bands of usable floor area (suprafață utilă). The amounts are final: the company is not registered for VAT.

The report within 24 hours is included; within 3 hours, with the urgent surcharge of 700 lei. In Bucharest and Ilfov, travel is included; elsewhere in Romania, the travel fee is communicated before the inspection is booked. The full grid, with the indicative amount in euro, is on the prices page.

What is specific to a house

In an apartment, the roof, the facade and the stacks are common parts of the block. In a house, they are all yours. The inspection covers them through the same areas of inspection, applied to the whole property:

• The loft and the roof, where they are accessible. In the loft we check the timber roof structure, the roof covering (for example metal sheeting), whether there is an anti-condensation membrane and the insulation. Signs of leaks are measured with a moisture meter, and missing or badly fitted insulation shows up in the thermal images. Rainwater pipes are part of the plumbing and drainage checks.
• Facades, the external insulation system and external joinery. The insulation system on the facade and the plinth are checked visually and with thermal imaging: thermal bridges and insulation defects show up in the thermal images; windows, glazing and hardware are covered by the architectural checks.
• Rising damp at the plinth. Rising damp comes up from below, has a horizontal upper limit and appears on the ground floor or in the basement. It is told apart from condensation and leaks by measurement, as part of damp detection.
• Terraces and balconies. On flat roofs that are not walked on, the waterproofing is checked. A wrong fall to the drain cannot be seen at a viewing and cannot be corrected without redoing the waterproofing and the finish; it is checked as part of the plumbing and drainage area.
• The house's own installations. The consumer unit, residual current protection, earthing and every socket, under the electrical checks; water supply, drainage and stacks, inspected with an endoscope, under plumbing and drainage.
• The visible structure. Cracks and their pattern, deformation, the load-bearing elements and, by scanning, the reinforcement, in the structural assessment from the PLUS package.

Anything that could not be accessed safely on the day of the inspection is recorded in the report, in the chapter on limits, so you know exactly what was checked and what was not.

What cannot be checked without destructive work

The inspection does not break, strip back or drill. That means a few limits, which we state explicitly instead of leaving them out:

• Buried foundations cannot be seen. Their effects can: cracks in the plinth and the walls, damp at the base of the walls, warped doors and windows.
• The inside of the walls cannot be seen directly. The thermal camera shows the surface temperature, it does not see through the wall, and it needs a difference of at least 10 degrees between inside and outside. The wall scanner shows the presence and approximate depth of reinforcement, pipes and cables, not their exact diameter.
• Hidden installations are checked through their effects and at the accessible points: the pressure gauge measures at the connection point, not in every branch, and the endoscope covers only what is visible along the probe's path.
• Checks required by law for installations remain the job of authorised staff: the socket tester does not replace a PRAM report (earthing and insulation measurements by an authorised laboratory), and the electrical check does not replace an ANRE-authorised electrician.
• A technical expertise (expertiză tehnică) is not part of the inspection. If the signs observed in the structure justify one, the report says so; an expertise can only be carried out by a technical expert certified by the ministry (MDLPA).

New house or older house

With a new house bought from a developer, the risks come from workmanship: finishes, joinery, thermal bridges, construction moisture, falls to the drains, installations fitted incorrectly. The BASIC package adds a review of the technical documentation, useful for comparing what was recorded with what was built. Book the inspection at least three days before you sign the handover report, so the objections can be sent in writing.

With an older house, age and alterations matter: damp and rising damp, worn installations, renovations covering old problems, cracks and changes made to the walls. Book the inspection after the viewing and before the preliminary contract (antecontract).

What you receive and who signs

The PDF report, by email and on WhatsApp, with numbered photos, measured values, thermal images where conditions allowed, the regulations cited with the date they were checked, the list of repairs and the chapter on the limits of the method. It is delivered in Romanian or in English, whichever you choose. You can see the full structure before you order, in the sample report. The inspection and the report are done by the same person, described on the about the engineer page.