Should an architect see a house before you buy it?

Buyers of substantial homes routinely commit seven figures on the strength of two viewings and a survey. The survey is necessary — but it answers a narrow question: condition. The questions that decide whether you’ll love the house are different: Can the kitchen ever be where life happens? Will planning allow what you’re imagining? Is that dark plan fixable, or fundamental?

An architect’s pre-purchase view reads the building’s potential and its resistances: which walls are doing structural work, where light could be borrowed, whether the awkward wing is an opportunity or a permanent apology, what a realistic intervention budget looks like. Sometimes the answer strengthens your offer — you can bid knowing the £150k of potential others can’t see. Sometimes it saves you from an expensive assumption: the “easy extension” that conservation policy will never permit.

Speed matters in a purchase, so this works as a fast consultation — a phone review of the listing first, a visit where warranted — arranged around your bidding timetable, not mine.