Buying a home is one of the biggest financial decisions most of us will ever make.

You check the neighbourhood. You organise the building inspection. You talk to the bank. You read the LIM. You probably walk through the house more than once, opening cupboards and imagining where the furniture will go.

But there may be something in that house you can't see.

If you're buying an older New Zealand home, it's worth knowing what you're buying before the keys are in your hand.

WorkSafe advises that homes built before 1 January 2000 may contain asbestos materials. It can be found in places you might not immediately suspect, including textured ceilings, vinyl flooring, cladding, roofing, soffits, wet-area linings, hot-water cupboards, gutters, downpipes and even fencing.

The difficult part? You generally can't identify asbestos just by looking at a material.

Testing suspected material is the way to confirm whether asbestos is present.

This is where I come in.

At NZ Healthy Homes, we provide pre-purchase asbestos surveys for people who want to understand what may be present in a property before they buy.

Our asbestos surveyors can identify potential asbestos-containing materials, assess their condition and risk, arrange appropriate sampling and provide a report of the findings.

This isn't about frightening you out of buying an older home.

Asbestos-containing material that is in good condition and left undisturbed may present a very different situation from material that is deteriorating or about to be drilled, sanded, cut, demolished or renovated. The important thing is knowing what you're dealing with.

What if your dream home comes with your dream renovation?

Those are exactly the sorts of situations where knowing what's in the property before work begins matters.

WorkSafe recommends checking for asbestos before undertaking work because even relatively small repairs and maintenance can disturb asbestos-containing materials.

Finding asbestos doesn't automatically mean you shouldn't buy the house.

It means you can make the decision with more information.

You may decide you're perfectly comfortable proceeding. You may want specialist advice about management or removal. You may need to factor future work into your renovation plans. Or the information may form part of the wider conversation you have before committing to the property.

What I don't want is for you to discover it accidentally after you've bought the house and started pulling things apart.