Steve Puddicombe, BSc Hons, FRICS

Expert QuestionS & AnswerS

After more than 30 years in building surveying, what are the early warning signs that a building defect is part of a wider estate or maintenance issue?

Key warning signs of a wider estate or maintenance issue often appear as isolated building modifications, low-quality short-term patch repairs, or frequent recurring defects such as similar cracking, leaks or component failures. My knowledge of building design, material performance, component life expectancy, and maintenance enables me to consider these issues in a whole building or estate context and provide the right advice to repair and maintain the assets in a compliant and effective manner.

Technical due diligence can influence major acquisition and funding decisions. What makes a building survey truly useful for decision-making rather than just descriptive?

A thorough technical due diligence survey does more than describe the property. It highlights elements that significantly affect value, funding, negotiation, and future risks associated with owner occupation or leasing. By clearly prioritising technical issues, defects, and legal and statutory concerns, and by providing realistic budget estimates, clients gain a better understanding of potential financial, contractual, or operational risks.

When investigating post-construction defects, how do you coordinate input from building surveyors, engineers and other specialists without losing sight of the core causation question?

As a building surveyor, I keep post-construction defect investigations focused by acting as the technical lead and clearly defining team roles. This involves identifying the defect, considering its cause, consulting with and briefing specialists on the required evidence, and testing each opinion against the physical findings. This approach helps avoid parallel investigations and keeps the team integrated and focused on what failed, why it failed, and provides the evidence supporting that conclusion.

Dilapidations, planned maintenance and defect diagnosis all require judgement about condition and future risk. How do you balance urgency, cost and evidence?

All of those factors differ for dilapidations, planned maintenance and defect diagnosis. Dilapidations assess disrepair against repairing covenants to determine breaches, recoverable costs and achieve an agreed settlement. Planned maintenance uses condition data to manage future risk and lifecycle expenditure. Defect diagnosis focuses on identifying the cause so conditions don’t escalate. In each case, I manage priority, evidence and costs to achieve effective outcomes and risk reduction.

What do you wish owners and occupiers understood earlier about maintaining commercial and public-sector buildings?

A common misconception is that deferring maintenance saves money. It may reduce expenditure in the current budget year, but poorly organised deferral can convert routine maintenance into major capital expenditure and create business disruption, health and safety risks plus consequential damage. Careful prioritisation of maintenance costs over a plan period and annual updating are essential. When maintenance standards slip, the cost of correction is disproportionately expensive.

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