A step-by-step hazard checklist for Philippine homebuyers, what to verify before signing, which questions to bring to a site visit, and when to call in an engineer.
By the time you are excited about a house, it is easy to skip the boring checks. But hazards are the one thing you cannot renovate away after you buy. Here is a simple checklist to run before you sign anything.
Before you fall in love with the kitchen, run the address through a hazard screening. You want to know, in a few minutes, whether the property sits in a flood zone, near an active fault, on a steep slope, in a storm-surge area, or near a waterway. This is the cheap first filter that tells you whether to keep looking or keep walking.
CheckHazard reads eleven hazard layers for one address and explains each in plain language, so this step costs you minutes, not a site visit.
Look at the overall risk first for the quick answer, then read what drove it. A property can be "moderate" overall for a mild reason or for one serious flagged hazard balanced by safe ones. The drivers tell you which.
Some findings deserve special weight:
Any one of these is not automatically a deal-breaker, but each is a reason to slow down and investigate.
Maps cannot see everything. Visit the property and ask:
The hazard report tells you what to look for. The site visit confirms it.
If the screening flags a serious hazard, hire a licensed geodetic, civil, or geotechnical engineer before you commit. For soft or reclaimed soil, that means a soil boring test. The engineer turns a flagged hazard into a clear answer: safe to proceed with the right design, or smarter to walk away.
The screening's job is to get you to that conversation knowing exactly which hazard to ask about, instead of paying for a broad assessment blind. See the homebuyer guide for how the report fits the buying process.
Save the report. It is useful for your loan application, for negotiating the price if a hazard is found, and as a record of what you knew when you decided.
CheckHazard does not replace a professional geotechnical or engineering survey. Use it as the first step in your due diligence, not the last.