Well found a house we love, old Maison De Maitre, yes it is the one with the unusal feature (own communication centre), it is approximately 200 years old and looks very sound in terms of the building fabric. However, my GF would like to have a survey carried out due to some minor cracks in the internal and external render. Is there such a thing as a building survey here in Switzerland or is there some other system of indemifying the purchaser if you end up buying a money pit. Just do not want to end up as a Tom Hanks and Shelly Long with a house than collapses around our ears

http://www.pwc.ch/en/our_services/ad...diligence.html

http://www.homegate.ch/buy/steps-to-...ess/inspection

We had looked at a house initially with the builder who had built the house years ago, and an architect. Both saw no problems with renovating it but the cracks bothered us a lot. I see a lot of houses, and I know cracks are not uncommon, but the cracks in question looked like nothing I had ever seen.

So we took a building engineer to the house and based on his report we withdrew our offer. His expert opinion was that the house had structural flaws and would be a "money pit" and that it made no sense to renovate it. We needed a written report and there was an additional fee for that. We had the building plans, which was useful, but perhaps those are not available to you.

So before you fall in love with the house, do have an expert look at it. The news may be good. Best of luck with this.

This is the search result for Switzerland on the RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) website - the search criteria being domestic survey in CH.

RICS

On a skiing holiday a few years back in Villars, I remember being in a ski group with a British surveyor who worked in the Lake Geneva area .. so there are UK surveyors around.