Spotlight Series: Q&A with Steve Henderson of Henderson Building Surveyors

Q1: What does your business do, and who do you help?

We are Henderson Building Surveyors. We are a small, family-run building surveying practice and we basically help people feel confident about the property they’re buying (or already living in). By giving them a clear, no-nonsense view of what its condition is, what might need doing soon, and what’s worth investigating before they actually buy it. Most of our instructions are RICS Home Surveys (Level 2 and Level 3), plus drone roof inspections, and we mainly look after homebuyers and homeowners across Berkshire and Oxfordshire, around Reading, Newbury and Oxford.

Q2: What inspired you to start your business?

I always wanted to work for myself and I was always interested in property. Like most people with those thoughts, this started as wanting a property empire, but I’m less interested in that now. I worked in social housing and enjoyed the customer interaction and helping people, but I wanted more professionally. So I took the leap and started the company, and have never looked back.

Q3: What do you enjoy most about your work?

I love the feeling of doing a great job, getting great feedback and having that all feed back into the business with 5 star reviews. We have over 150 5 star reviews now. Every time I look at them I just feel so proud. My wife told me once about the power of referrals and to be honest I took no notice. Until she showed me a social media feed where someone had recommended me. 5 or 6 of my old clients backed up the referral with positive comments and that post still brings in work years later – its amazing. I just love doing a good job and believe that all other things (money, growth) will follow that.

Q4: What makes your service or approach different?

I’m genuinely quite hands-on and I try to make the whole thing feel easy and human rather than scary and “survey-y” — you get a proper, thorough inspection (including a drone look at the roof as standard), loads of clear photos, and a report that tells you what actually matters in plain English, not waffle; and I’m always happy to talk it through afterwards so you’re not sat there staring at a PDF wondering what to do next.

Q5: What’s been a proud or memorable moment since launching?

Just seeing how the principles of being customer focused, doing the absolute best job you can, overdelivering wherever possible has fed back into a growing business. The business that allows me to support a young family, go on holiday, pay a mortgage, do fun things. That itself just continues to be proud and memorable for me.

Q6: Have you faced any major challenges, and how did you overcome them?

For me it’s the classic small business one: growth. I once heard someone say “if you’re not growing, you’re dying” and that’s always stuck with me, but I’m naturally quite cautious, so I’ve had to get comfortable with not waiting for everything to feel 100% “ready” before I make a move. I’m definitely the sort of person who’ll walk for longer than I need to before I run, if you know what I mean, so overcoming that has been about building confidence step by step. Tightening the service, listening to feedback, putting good systems in place, and then taking sensible risks, probably a lot later than I could have done.

Q7: What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting out?

I wish I’d known how much of running a surveying business is actually running a business, not just doing inspections and surveys. The surveying part I was comfortable with, but the admin, marketing, pricing, systems, and just keeping everything moving day after day is a whole separate job, and it takes real headspace and a whole load of time. If I could go back, I’d tell myself to put simple processes in place earlier, ask for help sooner, and not overthink every decision. I think you learn faster by doing, and most things are fixable as you go.

Q8: What’s a common misconception about your industry?

A big misconception is that a survey is some kind of simple “pass/fail” test, when it’s actually really nuanced and depends just as much on the buyer as it does on the building. I can walk around a house thinking “this is a fair bit of work”, but the client wants a project and they’re very happy with that, whereas I’ve also done surveys where someone’s asked why the drains weren’t clear and seriously considered pulling out based on that alone!

A good survey isn’t about scaring people, it’s about explaining what’s normal for that type of property, what the real risks are, and helping you decide what matters to you. I’ve never walked around a property that needed absolutely nothing doing to it,even a new build.

Q9: What advice would you give to someone entering surveying?

Get really good at the basics, stay curious, and don’t rush the “reading buildings” part. You learn loads more by seeing plenty of real properties and asking why things crack, leak, or decay than you ever will from a textbook. Take pride in being careful and consistent, and write like a human; clients don’t want fancy words, they want to understand what’s going on and what to do next. Most of us have been awake at 3am worrying about something we wrote on a report. It sounds silly, but if that happens to you, it shows you care and is only a good thing in the long run, you’ll catch up on sleep!

It’s a people job as much as a technical one too, so if you can explain tricky stuff calmly and clearly you’ll go far.  I’d say chase the knowledge and experience for a while before you chase the money, because once you’re genuinely good at surveying the money tends to follow anyway, and with a lot less stress.

Q10: What do you like about being listed on UK Business Portal?

I like being listed on UK Business Portal because it’s another place for people to stumble across us when they’re Googling for a local surveyor, and it actually shows what we are, rather than just a random name on a huge list.

It also helps with the due diligence most people do online, because it’s a UK directory and they build out a profile, so it’s a nice extra bit of visibility alongside word of mouth and other adverts, directories, etc.