Dilapidation report app for builders
Before excavation, piling or demolition starts next door, a builder commissions a dilapidation survey of the neighbouring houses so that a crack that was already there cannot become a claim. Afterwards the same houses are surveyed again. The report is evidence: every existing crack measured, located and photographed with a scale, so that the post-construction survey can show what changed and what did not.
Built for builders running teams of roughly 3–50 inspectors.
Sample Dilapidation report
An illustrative excerpt. The site, readings and findings are fictional; the layout is yours to set.
Dilapidation report
Pre-construction dilapidation — 20 Specimen Street (adjoining)
- Commissioned for
- Basement excavation at No. 22 (fictional)
- Survey date
- 5 January 2026
- Owner access
- Internal and external
| Location | Existing condition | Measurement |
|---|---|---|
| Front bedroom, cornice | Hairline crack along cornice, north wall | Measurement: <0.1 mm |
| Hallway, plaster | Diagonal crack from door head | Measurement: 0.5 mm, 400 mm long |
| Driveway | Transverse crack, slight displacement | Measurement: 2 mm |
| Boundary wall, south | No visible cracking | Measurement: Nil |
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 dilapidation report where your template puts it.
Property
- Address
- Construction type
- Access granted (internal / external / refused)
- Owner present
Per existing defect
- Room or elevation
- Defect type (crack, separation, staining)
- Width (mm)
- Length (mm)
- Photo with scale and comment
Survey
- Pre- or post-construction
- Linked baseline survey
- Change since baseline
How the dilapidation report gets built
Capture it once, offline
Your firm builds the residential dilapidation survey 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 dilapidation 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 dilapidation 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
- Can the post-construction survey compare against the baseline?
- Yes. The post-construction job can reuse each recorded defect, so the inspector records the new measurement against the old one and the report states the change.
- Can we survey a street of adjoining houses as one project?
- Each house is its own job, linked to the same client and project, so a builder gets one report per property while you manage them together on the board.
- Can photos include a crack gauge or scale?
- Each existing defect has its own photo-with-comment field, so a close-up with a crack-width gauge sits beside the measurement it supports and renders next to it in the report.
- What if the owner refuses internal access?
- Access is recorded as its own answer, and the report states the limitation and covers whatever was surveyed externally.
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-purchase building inspectionsBuilding inspection report
Other disciplines
Rebuild your dilapidation 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.