"Avoid this surveyor"

Avoid this surveyor.

In response to Tom’s reply it is complete lies that he needed to remove anything or dig up the garden - If he actually looked he would have seen it. As you can tell by Tom’s tone in his reply he is passive aggressive and his response stating X-ray eyes is childish. In addition putting the words ‘well versed’ in inverted commas as a dig to me about knowing this clause again is childish - I of course know these clauses but it’s when these clauses are used as a get out and not relevant to the complaint. I really do hope that any reader seriously just uses another surveyor - there are many to choose from.

Original review:
Inexperienced and will miss very obvious issues. Having bought many properties in a professional and personal capacity over the last 20 years, I am well versed therefore I can confidently state that Tom is the most unprofessional I have encountered.

We purchased a Grade 2 listed property and requested a full level 3 survey. Tom comes across as pleasant and friendly when you first engage, however when it comes to addressing an issue that arises he will ignore continuously. Multiple voicemails and emails and when we eventually reached him, he requested photographs and wasn’t going to come to the property in person to review our concerns - I had to push him to do this which is an immediate red flag of someone wishing to ignore their responsibilities. It took him a further 29 days to respond after he came to visit the property and that was after many emails requesting a response. After 29 days he provided a letter stating no responsibility and incompetent suggestions as to how to address the issue.

Tom will continue to use clauses regarding visual inspections to get out of his professional responsibilities, like he seems to continually do on his responses to other poor online reviews (Trustpilot, etc).

Our issue outside at the rear of the property should have been picked up during the survey as it was quite visually clear (without the need to remove anything). It is not a major issue and will cost £2.5k to rectify and I was prepared to share the cost with Tom (not that I have too) but he wouldn’t even entertain that - he simply avoids dealing with his professional responsibilities. His responses to say how to address our issue are incompetent and having shown his suggestions to two professional builders they were in agreement that his suggestions simply demonstrate someone with a lack of knowledge and experience.

Tom had this to say to me when I challenged his letter response:

“However, I realise it is your go to stance to be rude (as we have seen before) but as we are all humans I urge you not to take this approach as it is unnecessary. Your threats are weak and will get you nowhere.”

First of all I wasn’t being rude, Tom simply can’t handle the truth about a situation. In addition I never threatened Tom, I just stated that I would prefer not to go a legal route and instead reach a compromise - as a consumer you do have the right to take legal action and to be able to state that to a business you have an issue with. I am well within my right to lodge complaints with RICS and advise the estate agent that recommended Tom to us of his poor service.

Honestly it is not the £2.5k that it will cost me to rectify our issue at our property, it is simply a point of principle that we hired a surveyor to do a job and that job was not properly carried out and therefore they should take responsibility for it. I actually spoke with the previous owner of our property and they were able to tell me that Tom was in the property no longer than an hour - hence why the report was just full of standard templated blurb including things that were not relevant to a Grade 2 listed property!

Tom is a very small business (it took him 9 days to give us an office address to send legal correspondence, the address was for an accountancy firm in London!) and clearly doesn’t have the resources to deal with an issue that arises hence why he chooses to ignore them. As a business owner myself I can confidently state it takes years to build a good business reputation and minutes to destroy one.  As another reviewer states, Tom is a modern day cowboy. Continuing to operate a business in such a poor manner will eventually catch up with Tom

"Great experience with Lang and Stone"

Great experience with Lang and Stone. I commissioned a house survey report at short notice and the response was incredibly fast. They booked me in, completed the survey and produced the report in under a week. The report was well-written and detailed and covered all the issues that concerned me. The follow-up was also fast and efficient. I highly recommend them.

"£1,200. down the drain -AVOID!"

I had a very similar experience for a home buyers survey as reported by David. Tom is a modern day COWBOY.
Tom was very happy to take the money, but in terms of responding for his work, very very poor.
Tom who was available at short notice having found 3 week waiting time from others.
A date was agreed for the visit which included access to the roof via entrance from another property. On the appointed date did not show up, did not call either before or after to explain or apologize.
He did eventually show up unannounced, picked up the keys late one afternoon from the agent, no access to the roof as visit was not coordinated with other owner.
Once I received the survey I raised some questions and hoped to be talked through the survey. I also had absolutely zero response from Tom to multiple emails and answerphone messages.
The report was an absolute boilerplate, very generic, could have been written for almost any property, with a few photos attached. As a result not the basis for decision making.
Totally unprofessional behaviour I'm amazed he can still trade as a "surveyor".

"Lang & Stone AVOID"

Tom Lang of Lang & Stone dealt directly with us for a homebuyers survey. Tom was very efficient up until payment was received.

Initially we were impressed by Tom who was available the following week to carry out the survey (probably should have been a red flag) and he was very responsive. Tom was also very understanding of our late payment, as Tom still went out to the property to conduct the survey having not received any money.

Once we had paid and received the survey we have had absolutely zero response from Tom after multiple emails and answerphone messages. We had contacted Tom as there were some quite obvious errors in the survey which we wanted addressing and correcting. Errors like the placement of rooms across floors and stating the property was a freehold property when it was actually a leasehold. When there are such basic errors in the survey the credibility of the whole report is questioned.

I contacted Tom post-survey and was ignored for 3 months. It was only after RICS made contact with Tom at my request that he responded to me. This is completely unprofessional behaviour. Tom corrected the issues I had spotted in the report.

Wait a little longer for a quality surveyor if you are going to have one.

"Thorough and quick turnaround "

Tom was very helpful in all his communications. Got a Level 3 buildings survey done by him on Wednesday, got the report on Sunday. The survey itself was done about a week after getting in touch with them too, which is a lot quicker than other companies I got quotes from. Report was very thorough and lots of valuable advice. Highly recommended, thanks Tom 😃

"A thorough investigation of 4 Tynings Way, Westwood.he …"

A thorough investigation of the property indeed. I was really pleased with the outcome because I have been assured that the problems in my property have nothing to do with roof problems; the roof being in good condition.

"Reassuring and professional"

Tom was very easy to deal with - professional and reassuring. Report was detailed and very helpful

"Bad communication"

Booked a survey which was due to be completed at the property on 30th April. 2 weeks later I had not one bit of contact from Lang & Stone and in the second week I had sent several emails, left voicemails and texts and I've heard nothing. I was at the point of giving up and then Tom Lang got in touch apologising profusely and sent the report that afternoon. I'm still unhappy with the lack of contact but the report seems good.

"Excellent service for Homebuyer Report"

We found Lang and Stone through a comparison website and chose to use based on location and reviews. Tom was easy to contact, had quick availability and a quick turnaround for the write-up - our report was ready before some other surveyors’ earliest availability. The homebuyer report (level 2) is comprehensive, highlighting several useful features of the property for us to take into account, and very easy to understand. Would recommend!

"Impossible to contact"

I reached out to Tom at the start of March, and decided to go with him despite his quote being more expensive than others as he was local to the property and had excellent reviews. I paid Tom in full on the 18th of March and have since had literally no contact whatsoever, the phone number associated no longer accepts calls and I've been left completely in the dark.

I will update this review when/if I am able to contact again.

Update: Tom contacted me the day after this review was published, apologied and sent the report the same day. Changing from 1 to 3 stars as the survey didn't delay the house purchase and I was happy with the quality of the report, however be aware of potential unexplained lack of contact.