Are property surveyor reports available for home purchases?

It's disappointing to be told that surveyor reports for residential properties here in HKG are not practiced before purchasing a property. I bought a property in the NT, its ~30 year old building, it looked welcoming when we visited, clean and newly painted walls and ceilings. But after about 6months cracks started appearing on the roof line, they have increased in length and size from about 1mm at the start to about 7mm in about 3 years later. The cracks are about a meter and half in length in the bedrooms. I was told by workmen that it is caused by leakage from our open rooftop. There is no leakage through the cracks, except some dampness around the light structures. The light in one of the rooms is no longer used since it had cut off all the electricity in the flat, revived by the fuse box (?) / circuit breaker ON/OFF switch.


I sold my flat in UK, and it is mandatory for a surveyor report to be done. Sensibly this one report is accessible to all potential purchasers, so they know the quality of building they are purchasing. Well my UK flat I sold had to have alot of work done to bring it up to standard, since the rooftops and walls were damp caused by leakage. This obviously cost a fair sum to myself, but the new purchasers know the building is of good quality.


Now in HKG, we are considering selling the flat to buy another. Is there a recommended surveyor so incidents like this dont occur again? The cost is ~100K HKD to repair "properly" 50K for a superficial fix, which appears what the previous owners did before they sold the flat to us

My advice:


Do not buy a flat on the Top floor of a building, unless you are very sure there is no leakage. We prefer flats which are at least one floor lower