If you're about to take the plunge and either step onto or step up the property-market ladder, you're probably feeling a slight twinge of nerve and wondering what to about it.
Doing your Due Diligence
To ensure your peace of mind throughout the process, you'll take the steps in ensuring your due diligence is done. This could include those pre-purchase home assessments and building reports, LIM reports and council plans if they're required. However, something is missing from your checklist that could be crucial to your purchase. Meth contamination and meth testing is a huge issue in New Zealand with growing use and manufacture of the drug throughout the country. Both could be a huge problem for your prospective new home.
Photo cred: https://www.healthyhomesnz.co.nz/meth-testing/
Why is meth testing important?
Alongside the fact that nobody actually wants to live in a home that's been contaminated with meth, there are other factors that can create problems if the substance is present in your home:
- Health problems for you and the family, including severe sickness and hospitalisation
- Potential issues with resale in the future
- Structural integrity issues with the property
- If you don’t make the selling or buying agent aware that methamphetamine is a real concern to you, the agent is not obligated to tell you about results that are considered to be safe.
And while we've found many people think meth is only present in properties lower on the pricing scale, this isn't always true. We've found properties in top price brackets, properties that have had a fresh paint of coat, properties that look clean and tidy and properties that have had families residing in them for many years all contaminated with meth.
So what can you do about it?
Before you purchase a home, make sure you talk to your agent, lawyer and building inspector about the levels of meth that may be present in the home.
To safeguard yourself and your property, ensure you get a meth test done. At QSPlus, if our clients request a meth test in addition to their pre-purchase home assessments, we conduct them at the same time, saving you time and money and helping push through your purchase a bit quicker.
If you're looking to purchase a home, get in touch with us. We'll point you in the right direction and let you know if a meth test is something we recommend getting on your property.
