All building inspectors listed on our site must meet the following criteria:

1. Have up-to-date professional indemnity insurance.
2. Have an up-to-date membership of one of the following:
   • A registered member of NZIBS
   • An accredited building surveyor with BOINZ or
   • A member of NZIBI
3. Producing reports to the NZS 4306:2005 standard

The Close Off Date is the same as the Auction Date, as supplied by the buyer who commissioned the building inspection.

What makes the Close Off Date significant on AuctionReady is that:

1. Orders will stop being taken for the report on the website late in the day before.
2. The final tally of purchasers is calculated and refunds (as appropriate) given to purchasers

The Close Off Date may be different if the Auction Date changes, such as if there was a pre-auction offer accepted. We do not monitor properties. Purchasers of reports are assumed to be aware of the status of a property they are interested in, so if the auction is brought forward, the Close-Off Date may not change.

If someone is interested in a property, a few hundred dollars of due diligence is unlikely to be the difference between deciding whether to pursue it or not.

If they can get a report more cheaply through sharing the cost with you, they are more likely to get one and thereby know about issues. If there are costly issues to be fixed they’re likely to bid lower!

That is better than being out-bid by a buyer who bids too high due to ignorance of problems with it! See this May 2016 NZ Herald article

We put a lot of work into coming up with this our dynamic pricing model and so have applied for patent protection in New Zealand (733391) and Australia (2017204473).

But if you have another application of this model you want to create, get in contact, we’ll probably not stand in your way.

There are several advantages:

1. The discount you get (as listed) you get to keep. You end up paying that amount less than all the other buyers of that same report on the same property.
2. You get to choose who does the inspection (from those listed on our site).
3. You get to enter a message for the inspector (this is also available to those who pre-order before the inspection has taken place).

You pay the max price as displayed when you ordered the report. This is still cheaper than going direct to the report supplier.

Think about it this way: it might be because you had little or no competition at the auction and so you get the property for a reasonable price. In that case, you’re happy to have paid full price for the report?

If there is lots of competition, chances are higher than you pay a lot less for the report. The idea is that unsuccessful bidders buying via AuctionReady reduce their due diligence costs.

A named report has your name (the “Addressee”) on it. It gives you legal recourse in case of an issue arising with the property that was not shown on the report.

Unless you are named on the contract you are not considered a party to the contract. So if there is a major issue with the report, you don’t necessarily have the right to pursue the supplier as the contract was not between them and you, it was between them and the party(ies) named on the report (see privity).

A report supplied by the vendor has their name on it only.

Yes we would like to be a one stop shop for all types of due diligence. However, they are all different and must be treated differently. To begin with we’re focusing on standard pre-purchase building inspections.

In addition to those we hope to offer more boutique options as well in future such as getting an electrician or plumber to inspect their respective specialist areas. These might not be worthwhile for one prospective buyer but if the cost is spread it becomes practical.

Payment of max price is required when you order the report. However, the amount you end up paying depends on how many others buy the same report for the same property.

When the Close Off Date arrives (auction day), there will be a refund if further people purchased the report after you, such that the costs are shared evenly.

If the property hasn’t yet been visited we ask you in the pre-order form for any comments you want to pass onto the inspector.

This allows you to ask them to look into any particular concerns you want them to investigate while they’re undertaking the inspection. If the inspection has already taken place, obviously it’s too late for that.

We still are working out the fairest, viable way to do this so it is in flux while we monitor how things go but we hope to be more transparent about where all the money goes.

A rough guide is as follows:

• For the first report, we pass all the money onto the supplier (i.e. building inspector). The discount they give us we pass straight on to the first buyer.

• For subsequent reports, we divide the cost of producing the original report by the number of buyers then deduct service fees for AuctionReady and for the inspector.

What matters is that you pay less.

Yes. An offer on a property selling by tender or deadline sale is more attractive to the vendor if it has fewer conditions.

For this reason, doing some or all due diligence beforehand to reduce conditions is often recommended. If doing that, AuctionReady could be a good place to arrange those and reduce your costs in case you miss out.

We’re not sure. We’d like to know too!

We can think of some possible reasons why:

• They are afraid of the report showing up something that will reduce the attractiveness or selling price.
• They got a report done but it found something that would reduce the attractiveness or selling price so they withheld it.
• They didn’t get around to it or their estate agent didn’t encourage it.

Given the above, if a vendor’s report isn’t supplied you should be particularly careful to get a building report done by a reputable inspector, such as one through AuctionReady!

Be sure to read the answers to other questions around vendor reports.

Several reasons:

1. The report provided by the vendor is a pre-sale report. It is sometimes less detailed and is considered to be made up for the vendor to re-assure buyers (see this article).
2. It is commissioned by the vendor, for the vendor. The vendor also chooses who carries out the inspection and may have shopped around for the most favourable report.
3. You do not have any legal redress if the inspector misses something big because a vendor’s report is not addressed to you.

See this article for more detail on the downsides of relying on vendor supplied reports.