Pre-purchase building inspection software
A pre-purchase inspection is read by a buyer who has a few days left on a cooling-off period and one question: is there anything here that should change the price or the decision? AS 4349.1 sets what must be inspected and reported, and the liability sits in the gap between the summary on page one and the defects in the body. SurveyThanks records each area and each defect as data, so the summary is built from the same rows the body is.
Built for building inspectors running teams of roughly 3–50 inspectors.
Sample Building inspection report
An illustrative excerpt. The site, readings and findings are fictional; the layout is yours to set.
Building inspection report
Summary of findings — 12 Fictional Grove
- Inspection type
- Pre-purchase, AS 4349.1 visual inspection
- Inspected
- 22 April 2026, 9:30 am, fine and dry
- Areas not accessed
- Roof void over garage (no access hatch)
| Area | Finding | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Rear wall, laundry | Stepped cracking through brick mortar, 3–4 mm | Classification: Major defect |
| Ensuite | Drummy floor tiles near the shower recess | Classification: Minor defect |
| Sub-floor | Inspected; no evidence of moisture or movement | Classification: No defect |
| Roof exterior | Two cracked ridge tiles above the front bedroom | Classification: Minor defect |
Fields captured on site
Your firm builds the form in-app, so these are a starting point rather than a fixed schema. Every field is captured on the device, with or without signal, and lands in the building inspection report where your template puts it.
Per area
- Area name (room or external zone)
- Accessed / not accessed, with reason
- Defects found (yes / no)
- Photos with comment
Per defect
- Linked area
- Major / minor classification
- Location within the area
- Probable cause
- Recommended action and trade
Inspection conditions
- Weather at time of inspection
- Occupied / vacant / furnished
- Persons present
- Obstructions limiting the inspection
Standards the report works to
- AS 4349.1-2007Inspection of buildings — Pre-purchase inspections — Residential buildings
- The areas that must be inspected, the defect classifications and the required report content.
- AS 4349.0-2007Inspection of buildings — General requirements
- The general requirements every Part of AS 4349 builds on, including inspector qualifications and report basics.
Load the standards you hold into your reference library and the drafted prose is written against them rather than against a general model.
How the building inspection report gets built
Capture it once, offline
Your firm builds the pre-purchase building inspection form in-app — 25 field types, nesting repeatable groups, compound AND/OR visibility rules, reusable modules and calculated fields. Field capture works with no signal: jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio all queue in an idempotent outbox that only clears once the server confirms receipt.
Link it to your rooms and external areas
Enter rooms and external areas once, as a register. Every one of your defects, photos and timber pest findings then points at a stored row rather than a name somebody typed — and the links survive a disconnected device.
Render your own template
The building inspection report renders into the Word template you already use — your letterhead, your section order, your clause library — with conditionals, loops over repeats, composable sub-templates and photo grids.
Reviewed before it leaves
You write the review framework: a checklist of what a building inspection report must contain, plus the prose standards you would mark a junior against. Link it to a report template and it runs every time that template renders. Each finding comes back graded info, minor or major, quoting the sentence at fault, and a person accepts or dismisses every one.
Because the structured submission behind the report is held too, the review is a comparison rather than a proofread: The summary says no major defects were found; the form carries a major structural defect on the rear wall.
Checks a residential property framework usually carries
- The standard’s required wording, limitations and exclusions are all present
- Every area is either reported on or listed as not accessed, with a reason
- Each defect in the summary appears in the body at the same severity
- Timber pest findings carry the risk statement the standard requires
Questions
- How do you stop the summary and the body disagreeing?
- Both are rendered from the same defect rows. A defect recorded as major on site appears as major in the summary table and in the body, and the review step flags any drafted sentence that contradicts the captured data.
- Can we record areas we could not get into?
- Yes. Every area carries an accessed or not-accessed answer with a reason, and the not-accessed list can render as its own section so the limitation is stated rather than implied.
- Will it produce our standard AS 4349.1 wording?
- Your scope, limitations and exclusions live in your Word template and are rendered verbatim on every report. Drafted text is only placed where your template puts an AI marker.
What this is not
Worth knowing before you book a demo, so neither of us wastes the half hour.
- Not field-service dispatch. No timesheets, no parts, no inventory. Scheduling exists to get an inspector to a site.
- No signature capture. If your deliverable has to carry a signed sign-off on the artefact itself, this is not the tool yet.
- Field capture is what works offline — jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio. Reports, chat, scheduling and the inbox need a connection.
- No client portal. Reports go out as a file or a password-protected link.
Other residential property work we cover
- Dividing fence condition reportsFence condition report
- Granny flat approval inspectionsSecondary dwelling report
- Meth residue testingContamination test report
- Mould inspectionsMould assessment report
- New-build handover inspectionsPCI defect report
- Owner-builder defect inspectionsDefect schedule
- Pre-auction inspectionsCondition summary report
- Pre-settlement inspectionsSettlement checklist report
Other disciplines
Rebuild your building inspection report in SurveyThanks
Bring the Word template you already send clients. If you are coming off another field-forms tool, a filled report can be uploaded, read field by field, and re-rendered into your template.