h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

While your tips are excellent, I feel sure, to a NOn-Brit they are somewhat befuddling. Trying to write a guide to home buying for the entire planet would be an ambitious project for someone's life work. While the guide is a British endever, its mission is global. Perhapse calling it Questions to ask when viewing a property in England. This would eliminate the problem as well as encourage others to write corisponding editions for there homeland.

Some questions which I would advise(not sure if they would be real issues in Brittan.

How high is the water table. Tells a great deal about the reliability of wells and the danger of seperating foundations.

How old is the roof? Having a roof reshingled is expensive and needs doing every twenty to thirty years. How long till I will have that expense to deal with.

Is there a disused septic tank or anything else under the property?

I could come up with a dozen more if I took the time. My point is that these are real conserns and valid questions where I live, but I would not expect them to all be a big deal everywhere.

I did try to only include questions which would be pertinent to all countries, but as you say, you will never cover every eventuality.

Thanks for the roof one! Completely forgot about that.
I think most people would get the water table level independantly checked, and it's not relative to all properties.

Can I ask which ones you found most befuddling? I'll try and ammend them.

I could just narrow it down to England, as that is the only place I have a knowledge about, but I dno't think the questions will be too different in other parts of the world.
Thanks for the feedback

Simon