A dilapidation report records the condition of a property before nearby construction starts, so that any damage claimed afterwards can be checked against a dated baseline. To do one with 360 photos, drone imagery and laser scans, you capture every accessible surface on a known date, place each capture on a plan or map, pin every existing defect to its location, and store the whole set so you can walk the same route after the work and compare.
The name varies by country. In Australia and New Zealand it is a dilapidation report or dilapidation survey, and councils often make one a condition of consent before excavation or demolition next to an existing building. In the US the same document is a pre-construction condition survey, usually required by the contractor’s insurer or by a permit for excavation, pile driving or blasting. In the UK it is a schedule of condition (there, “dilapidations” on its own usually means end-of-lease repair claims, a different process). The job is the same everywhere: prove what was already there.
What does a dilapidation report need to capture?
The report has one reader who matters: someone, maybe two years from now, trying to decide whether a crack was there before the piling rig arrived. Everything in the report exists to make that decision easy. A good one records:
- Who, when and where. The property address, the date and time of the inspection, who carried it out, who was present, and the weather (rain shows up as staining, heat shows up as open joints).
- Scope and exclusions. Which rooms, elevations and external areas were inspected, and which were not accessible. A room missing from the report reads later as “no defects”.
- Every existing defect, located. Cracks with width, length and direction; staining; sagging or bowing; loose render; displaced tiles; doors and windows that bind; gaps at baseboards and cornices. Each one tied to a room or elevation and a spot within it.
- The externals. Footpaths, curbs, driveways, boundary fences, retaining walls, pools and paving. Ground movement shows here first, and these are the surfaces the builder’s trucks will drive over.
- Photos keyed to a plan. Each photo numbered and marked on a floor plan or site plan, so a reader can find the spot.
- Acknowledgment. The adjoining owner is given a copy and asked to confirm it reflects the condition on the day, or to list what they disagree with.
For crack widths, use a crack gauge or a scale card in the close-up photo and grade them consistently. The BRE Digest 251 categories are widely used: hairline under 0.1 mm, fine up to 1 mm, up to 5 mm, 5 to 15 mm, 15 to 25 mm, and over 25 mm. A measured width on a dated photo is what makes “it got worse” provable.
Which capture method for which part of the property?
No single tool covers a dilapidation survey:
| Method | Best for | What it gives you | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 360 photos (pole or handheld) | Room-by-room interiors, fences, footpaths, the whole walk | A complete look-around at every stop, captured in seconds | Weak GPS indoors, so number the stops or record a GPX track. Not a measuring tool |
| Standard photos with a scale | Each defect close up | Crack width, texture, a reference number | Useless without a location reference |
| Drone orthomosaic and obliques | Roofs, upper facades, driveways, the whole block | A dated top-down map plus roof condition without a ladder | Neighbor privacy and airspace rules. Save the flight plan so you can repeat it |
| Laser scan (terrestrial or handheld) | Party walls, retaining walls, heritage facades, anything where movement matters | Geometry you can measure later. E57 scans can carry a 360 view of each setup | Longer capture, large files. The accuracy is the scan’s accuracy |
| Video walkthrough | Context between stops | Continuity and narration | Hard to reference a single frame later |
360 photos do most of the work on a typical residential job because they are fast and complete. A scan earns its place where a few millimeters of movement will matter: a shared wall, a retaining wall above the excavation, a heritage facade.
Why a dated capture on a map beats a folder of photos in a PDF
The traditional deliverable is a PDF: a template, a plan with numbered dots, and a few hundred downsampled photos. It is fine as a document. It is poor as evidence, for reasons covered in site records for inspectors and developers: the photos in the PDF are compressed, the originals live in someone’s camera roll, and comparing two reports means two PDFs open side by side.
A dated capture on a map fixes the part that matters most: finding the same spot again.
- The date is the inspection date. Each capture carries the day it was taken, not the day somebody got around to uploading it.
- Every photo knows where it was taken. A 360 placed on the site map by GPS, or along a GPX track by capture time, needs no numbered dot on a plan. The map is the plan.
- Defects are pinned to the spot. A note at the crack above the laundry door is at that spot, on that date, with the close-up photo and the width attached.
- The originals stay at full resolution. Zoom into the 360 or the scan instead of asking whether anyone kept photo 47.
This is the site record idea applied to one job: the property is the site, the pre-construction survey is one dated capture, and the post-construction survey is the next one.
How to do a dilapidation report with 360 photos, drones and scans
1. Agree the scope and get access. The structural or geotechnical engineer usually defines the zone of influence around the excavation. List the properties inside it, write to each owner, and book a time. Note anything you are refused access to.
2. Walk the property with a 360 camera. Shoot a 360 in every room, at each doorway, along each fence line and footpath, in a consistent order. Record a GPX track on a phone or watch so that photos with a weak GPS fix still land on the route.
3. Photograph each defect close up. Crack gauge or scale card in frame. One wide shot for context, one close-up for the measurement.
4. Fly the drone. An orthomosaic of the whole block, plus obliques of roofs, gutters and upper walls. Save the flight plan so the post-construction flight matches.
5. Scan where movement matters. Party walls, retaining walls, heritage elements. Mark the scanner positions so you can set up in the same places later.
6. Build the record. Upload everything to one site for the property, with the capture date set to the inspection day. Pin a note at each defect with the measured width, the close-up photo and a short description. Group the notes into a list per property.
7. Issue it and get acknowledgment. Send the owner and the builder one link to the record alongside the written report. Ask the owner to confirm, or to reply on any note they disagree with.
8. Repeat after the work. Same route, same flight plan, same scanner positions. Add it as a new capture on the same site and compare pin by pin.
How do you compare before and after?
In Swyvl, notes follow the place, not the file. A note made on the pre-construction capture of a scan or orthomosaic shows up on the post-construction capture at the same spot, drawn as a hollow pin and labeled with where and when it was made. It is one note, not a copy, so the reply you add on the later capture (“now 2 mm, extended 300 mm toward the corner, photo attached”) sits in the same thread as the original observation. The whole history of that one crack lives in one place. This works on any file that has a position: a georeferenced scan, an orthomosaic, 3D Tiles, an XGRIDS scan.
On 360 photos, pin the defect inside the photo. The photo itself sits on the site map at the stop where it was taken, so when you open the later walk, the matching stop is right beside it. Connected 360s open as a street-view-style walkthrough with a synced minimap, which is how you re-inspect from the office. The 360 tour feature page covers placement and the walkthrough in more detail.
Measurements (distances, areas and heights) are available on scans, orthomosaics and 3D models, saved with the file, but not on 360 photos, where notes carry the observation instead. A measurement on a scan is only as accurate as the scan, and for crack widths the gauge in the photo remains the number.
Notes can also be exported as a PDF for the appendix of the formal report, or shared as a walkthrough link that steps through each note in order. More on the notes feature page.
Sharing with neighbors, builders and insurers
A dilapidation report has several readers with different needs:
- The adjoining owner wants to see their own property and confirm the record is fair.
- The builder wants a baseline they can rely on before the first excavator arrives.
- The insurer or a lawyer, months or years later, wants the original evidence with its dates intact.
One share link per property covers all three. A share link can be password-protected or invite-only by email, carries your logo and accent color, and can be edited after sending, so the post-construction capture can be added to the same link later, or the link set to include new uploads automatically. Someone invited by email can open a note and reply in the browser after verifying their address with a code: no account to create, no seat to pay for. That is how an owner says “agreed” or “the fence was already leaning” directly on the note, where it stays.
You can see when a link was viewed, and an activity log records uploads, shares and views on each site. When the question later is “did the neighbor see the report before work started”, there is a record to check. Files are stored in the region you choose, which matters when a client wants the data held in-country.
The share link feature page covers the options.
Trying it
The free plan (3 sites, 5 GB, 10 saved notes) is enough to test the before-and-after on one small property. A firm doing a property or two a week will want Solo or Team for the storage and the notes allowance; see pricing. If you capture 360s from the air rather than a pole, capturing 360 panoramas with a DJI drone covers the capture side.
The method is the same whichever tools you use: capture everything on a known date, put every observation at its location, and keep it where the next survey of the same property lands beside it.