Greater London · London and the South East
Pre-Purchase Roof Survey in Longlands
A roof survey before you buy a house or flat in Longlands. More than 5,000 surveys completed across London and South East England.
- Gutters that overflow or drip at the joints
- Quick fixes on flashings and valleys
- Ponding, blisters or splits on a flat roof
About our pre-purchase roof survey in Longlands
A roof report gives you something solid to take back to the seller or the agent. You can ask about the roof’s history, ask for repairs before completion or rethink the price. What the seller agrees to is up to them, but you’ll be negotiating from a clear picture rather than a hunch. It also helps you decide whether to go ahead at all. We’re frequently asked to look into blistered or split felt on a flat roof and sagging ridge lines or uneven roof slopes, on natural slate, flat-roofed extensions and dormers and clay and concrete tiles.
Many London homes have been converted into flats, extended at the back or given a loft conversion with a dormer. Each change adds roof details, such as flat roofs, new flashings and junctions with the original slopes. For a purchase in Longlands, or for new roofing work there, those junctions deserve a close look. Lead work around dormers and new flat roofs is easy to get wrong and easy to miss.
The report is yours to share with whoever needs it: your solicitor, the seller, your insurer, a roofer or the building’s managing agent, whichever applies.
- Place
- Longlands (DA15, DA14, SE9)
- Wider area
- Greater London
- Cost
- From £150 inc. VAT
- Reports
- A written report with photos, by email
- Survey days
- Monday to Sunday, daytime
- Cover
- Professional indemnity and public liability
- Call
- 07833 053749
- Updated
- 27 October 2026
How it works
Photos are taken throughout the visit, so you can see in the report what we found and where. We take close-ups from wherever is safe, including by drone where it is applicable and the weather allows. A typical visit takes about 1–2 hours at the house you’re buying, depending on its size and how much of the roof can be seen. In Longlands, as in much of London, a good many properties are flats or terraces without side access, so rear slopes are viewed from windows, the loft or, where a flight is allowed, by drone. If the building has a managing agent or access rules, tell us when you book.
- You book once your offer is accepted and let us know the address and your timetable.
- We agree a time and how we will get in, including the loft.
- We inspect the roof from the ground, windows, the loft and the roof itself where it is safe.
- We check and photograph the slates or tiles, ridges, valleys, flashings, chimneys and gutters.
- Your report arrives by email, with photos and recommendations prioritised by urgency.
How to prepare
- Tell us where we can park nearby
- Have keys ready for side gates, garages or roof access doors
- Move anything stored under the loft hatch
Getting a price
Our price is from £150, including VAT. What you pay depends on the roof’s size, access and the package, and you can phone 07833 053749 or send us an email to find out.
Advice
Places near Longlands
What else we do in Longlands
What you can safely check yourself
Inside, the loft is a good place to look, with care. Use a torch and stay on the joists or boards, checking for stains, damp wood or chinks of daylight.
You can learn a lot from ground level. With binoculars, look for slipped or missing slates and tiles, gaps along the ridge and leaning chimneys. Please do not climb up for a closer look.
Landlords, agents and block managers in Longlands
We also survey roofs for businesses and commercial landlords, from shops and offices to industrial units. Larger roofs take longer.
An agent can book and manage the survey for a landlord, and the report can go to both. Access is agreed with the tenant ahead of time.
What a pre-purchase roof survey doesn’t cover
Before booking, it’s worth knowing what a survey will not do:
- The condition of the rest of the house (that’s a RICS home survey)
- Confirmation of asbestos in cement sheets or soffits
- Faults hidden behind ceilings, boards or coverings
Not sure which survey suits your roof? You can phone 07833 053749 or email us and we will tell you. The full list of what we check.
What we check
- Chimney stacks
- Gutters and downpipes
- Clay and concrete tiles
- Flat-roofed extensions and dormers
- Natural slate
- Lead flashings and valleys
- The roof space
Longlands questions
Is drone flying allowed in Longlands?
The answer turns on the exact location and the conditions on the day. Across London there are restriction zones around Heathrow, London City and London Heliport, plus restricted areas over Hyde Park, the City of London and the Isle of Dogs. Each address is checked against all of them before the drone goes up. Before any flight, we check the Drone Safety Map for airspace restrictions, including zones around airports and prisons. The flight also waits for calm, dry weather, though the rest of the survey goes ahead either way.
Does a conservation area affect roof work in Longlands?
For listing, use Historic England’s list; for conservation areas, ask the council. It matters most if you are planning to re-roof in a different material.
Can you survey in bad weather?
Light rain is usually fine; heavy rain and wind are different. In strong wind or heavy rain, a drone can’t fly and access may not be safe, and we’d agree another day.
Does someone need to be in?
That depends on the survey. For inside areas and the loft space, someone has to give us access, while outside access can be discussed when booking.
Do you work in Longlands?
Yes, we do. We carry out pre-purchase roof surveys in Longlands.
What insurance do you have?
We’re covered by professional indemnity and public liability insurance, for every survey we carry out.
Does your survey replace a RICS home survey?
No. We survey the roof, not the whole building, and it is not a RICS Level 2 or Level 3 survey. It complements one rather than replacing it.
Why it’s worth a survey now in Longlands
When a chain is moving fast, a roof survey can feel like one more delay. Weekend visits are available as well as weekdays, and the Premium Survey report arrives the same day, which helps it fit around your exchange date. London’s older roofs often have bitumen felt underlay or none at all, so once the slates or flashings let water past, little stops it reaching ceilings. Left alone, that means wet timbers and plaster, which is a far bigger job than the roof fault itself.
All our prices include VAT. Pre-purchase roof survey starts from £150, including VAT. You will know the price for your survey before you book.
Why book us in Longlands
- Thermal imaging and drones used where they help
- More than 5,000 surveys completed
- Drone flown under a CAA Flyer ID and Operator ID
- Surveys seven days a week
Buying a home or a new roof in Longlands
The wider area around Longlands has a long history of building, with Eltham Palace about 2 miles north-west. On older houses around here, roofs frequently carry the marks of earlier repairs, from replaced slates to new lead. Alongside Victorian and Edwardian terraces, outer London has a great many interwar semis, frequently with hipped roofs of clay or concrete tiles. If your home in Longlands is one of them, bay roofs, hips and later dormers each have their own details. For a purchase or a newly finished roof, the materials decide which details matter most.
For a London address like Longlands, it’s useful to know about controlled parking before the day, along with any off-street space. If you own a rental within reach of New Eltham station, the roof is worth checking before you add another property to a portfolio or pay a roofer in full.
Longlands is about 1 mile west of Sidcup, in Greater London. If you’re in Longlands, booking works exactly as it does anywhere else: get in touch, agree the price and pick a day. Our area takes in places right across Greater London. We also survey roofs in London.
Here we cover the DA15, DA14 and SE9 postcode area for pre-purchase roof surveys. Whether your property is on Main Road, Alder Road and Sidcup Road or a nearby road, we can survey it. Longlands sits on or near the A211. We also cover the places around Longlands: Foxbury (1 mile south), New Eltham (1 mile north-west), Chislehurst (1 mile south-west), Coldharbour (1 mile west) and Blackfen (1 mile north). Larger places within reach include London (9 miles north-west), City of Westminster (12 miles north-west), Marylebone (12 miles north-west), Kensington (13 miles west), St Pancras (11 miles north-west) and Shoreditch (10 miles north-west).
What’s near Longlands
We work in homes and buildings around Waring Park, Chislehurst School for Girls and Ye Olde Black Horse Inn. The closest station to Longlands is New Eltham station, roughly 0.8 miles north-west. A little further out are Queen Mary's Hospital (1 mile south-east) and Greenwich Castle (5 miles north-west). Green spaces nearby include Summer Hill and The Tarn.
Do you need a pre-purchase roof survey in Longlands?
A chimney stack stands out in the wind and rain and they’re frequently the least maintained part of a roof. Mortar erodes, the flaunching around the pots cracks and the flashings work loose. A stack may be shared with the neighbours, which matters if work is needed.
Most people get in touch when they’ve noticed something like this:
- Patch repairs that may hide an ongoing problem
- Flashings that have lifted or split
- Gutters choked with leaves and moss
- Standing water on a flat extension roof
The streets around a church like Christ Church are frequently among the oldest in a place, and if your home is one of the older ones nearby, the roof may have had decades of patch repairs, and the survey shows where they are.
What to check before booking
- Whether you get a written report with photos
- Which parts of the roof they’ll actually see
- How long the report takes to arrive
- Is there a chance to talk the report through?