Home survey guides
These are the questions buyers ask after a RICS Home Survey, answered from the standard and from public guidance, not from a call centre script. Start with the level you bought, then the rating you do not understand. Last reviewed 24 October 2026. The glossary defines the words, and the tools only restate a rating or sort a decision. They do not price the house.
Choosing a survey
- What is the difference between a RICS Home Survey Level 1, 2 and 3?
How RICS Home Survey Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 differ in inspection, advice and valuation, and which one buyers in England and Wales usually need.
- How long does a home survey take?
How long a RICS Home Survey inspection takes on site, why the written report takes longer, and what actually changes the time.
- What should you ask your surveyor?
Questions to ask a RICS surveyor before they inspect, and after the Home Survey arrives, including level, limits, ratings and further investigation.
- What is the difference between a RICS Level 2 and Level 3 survey?
How a RICS Home Survey Level 2 differs from Level 3, in plain English, without treating Level 3 as a valuation.
- What is the difference between a HomeBuyer Report and a Building Survey?
The old names for RICS Level 2 and Level 3, and what changed when the Home Survey Standard arrived.
- What is the difference between a mortgage valuation and a home survey?
Why the lender’s valuation is not the condition survey you think you have already paid for.
- What is the difference between an RICS survey and a non-RICS survey?
How an RICS Home Survey differs from a report by a surveyor who is not working to the RICS standard, including RPSA members.
Money
- What does a home survey cost at each RICS level?
What RICS actually publishes about Home Survey fees for Level 1, 2 and 3, and why a postcode table on the internet is not a quote.
- Which repair costs can a buyer actually look up?
A repair-cost hub that repeats only figures a named body has published, and refuses invented national averages.
- What is a mortgage retention, and is it a condition rating?
How a lender’s retention or down-valuation differs from a RICS condition rating, without inventing how much a lender will hold back.
Reading the report
- What do condition ratings 1, 2, 3 and NI mean?
What RICS condition ratings 1, 2 and 3 mean, what NI and the document mark R mean, and what a buyer should do with each.
- What is still undone when a report asks for another inspection?
How to read further investigation, a limitation and NI in a RICS Home Survey, and why none of them is a specialist already booked.
- Is an EPC a home survey?
What GOV.UK says an Energy Performance Certificate is for, and why A to G is not a condition rating.
After the survey
- Should you renegotiate, or walk away?
How to use a RICS Home Survey to renegotiate a purchase or withdraw, without treating a rating 3 as an automatic discount or an automatic exit.
- When can you walk away after a home survey?
How a survey sits next to being legally committed, without a formula that tells you to withdraw.
- What further investigations can a survey ask for?
Why a home survey sends you to electricians, drainage firms, structural engineers or damp specialists, and what those visits are not.
Damp
- What does damp mean in a home survey?
How to read damp, staining and mould in a RICS Home Survey, including condensation, penetrating damp and rising damp, without treating the word as a diagnosis.
- What can a home survey say about a cellar?
What a RICS home survey can record in a cellar or basement it entered, and what a shut door, a coating or a pump left switched off does not prove.
- Is it rising damp or condensation?
How to separate condensation, penetrating damp and rising damp in a home survey in England and Wales, and why a moisture meter is not a diagnosis.
- What does mould mean in a home survey?
How to read mould in a RICS Home Survey, why GOV.UK damp-and-mould guidance is not a rating or a price cut, and why cleaning is not the repair.
- What does ventilation mean in a home survey?
What Approved Document F is for in England, which vents and fans a survey can see, and why a Home Survey is not an air test.
Structure and movement
- What does subsidence mean when you are buying a house?
What subsidence is, how it differs from settlement, heave and ordinary cracks, and what a RICS Home Survey can and cannot conclude.
Japanese knotweed
- What should you do if a survey mentions Japanese knotweed?
What a Japanese knotweed note in a UK home survey means legally, for mortgages, and in the RICS management categories. England-focused.
Roofs
- What do roof defects mean in a home survey?
How to read roof, chimney, flashing and loft comments in a RICS Home Survey, including what NI means when the roof was not inspected.
Electrics
- What does a survey say about wiring, and what is an EICR?
How electrical comments in a RICS Home Survey differ from an EICR, what C1, C2, C3 and FI mean, and when England’s landlord rules apply.
Walls
- What are cavity wall ties, and what if a survey flags them?
What cavity wall ties do, how failure shows up in a RICS Home Survey, and why a specialist inspection is different from a crack guess.
Timber
- What does woodworm or timber decay mean in a survey?
How to read wood-boring insect damage and fungal decay in a home survey, including old flight holes and the limits of a visual inspection.
- What is the difference between dry rot and wet rot?
How dry rot and wet rot differ, why the treatments are not interchangeable, and what a home survey can see without opening the floors.
Hazardous materials
- What does asbestos mean in a home survey?
What HSE says about asbestos in homes built or refurbished before 2000, why materials differ, and why a home survey does not test them.
- What does spray foam insulation mean in a home survey?
Why spray foam can hide roof timbers, which papers to ask for, and how RICS describes the effect on value and lending.
- What do lead pipes mean when you are buying a house?
What the Drinking Water Inspectorate says about lead pipes, testing at the kitchen tap, and the pipes a surveyor cannot see.
Roof and rainwater
- What do chimney defects mean when you are buying?
What a visual home survey can say about stacks, flashings and pots, and why it does not sweep or camera a flue.
- What does a flat roof mean in a home survey?
What a visual survey can see on a flat roof, why details fail before the middle of the sheet, and what stays hidden under the covering.
- Do leaking gutters and downpipes matter when you buy?
Why leaking rainwater goods cause penetrating damp, why a damp-proof course is the wrong repair, and what a survey does not water-test.
Drainage
- What do drainage defects mean in a home survey?
What RICS home surveys do and do not do with drains, and how that differs from a CCTV survey and from Approved Document H.
Structure
- What does non-standard construction mean in a home survey?
Why RICS points Level 1 and Level 2 at conventional homes, and what to ask when a survey says the construction is unusual.
- What do cracks mean in a home survey?
How to read cracks without treating every one as subsidence, and without using width charts this page cannot source.
- What does a bowing or bulging wall mean?
How a home survey treats walls that are out of plumb, and why the cause matters more than the drama.
- What do lintel problems look like in a survey?
How to read cracks over windows and doors, and what a survey can and cannot see of the lintel.
- What does cracked or hollow render mean?
Why cracked render is often a rainwater path into the wall, and when it is a clue to movement instead.
- How should you read a garden wall or a retaining wall in a home survey?
How a home survey treats garden walls and retaining walls, and why a lean there is not automatically subsidence of the house.
- How should you read a steel frame that sits behind the brick?
How a home survey treats a steel frame behind a brick or cladding skin, and why the name of the system is not a lender's decision.
- How should you read a mundic comment on a concrete-block house?
Why a home survey in the south west is not a mundic class, and what RICS and Cornwall Council say the test actually is.
Services
- What do window and door defects mean in a survey?
Failed seals, rot, and the building-regulations question when windows were replaced.
- What does a home survey say about plumbing, heating and the boiler?
What a RICS Home Survey can record about pipes, tanks and the boiler, and why that is not a service, a pressure test, or a Gas Safe check.
- What does gas safety mean when you are buying a house?
How HSE gas safety rules and the Gas Safe Register differ from a RICS Home Survey, and why a landlord gas record is not an automatic buyer’s document.
- How should you read a heat pump note in a home survey?
What a home survey can say about an air-source or ground-source heat pump, and why a grant, an EPC and a service record are different papers.
Legal and neighbours
- What is a party wall, and when does the Act apply?
The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 in England and Wales, and why a survey rating is not a party-wall award.
- How should you read a garage, shed or outbuilding in a survey?
Condition versus permission for outbuildings, without inventing the Planning Portal’s size limits.
- What if an extension has no building-regulations approval?
How to separate a surveyor’s view of an extension from the paperwork your solicitor must check.
Environment
- What does radon mean when you are buying a house?
UKHSA Action and Target Levels, how a three-month test works, why the map is not a measurement, and the published address-search fee.
- What does flood risk mean when you are buying a house?
What the GOV.UK long-term flood-risk service covers in England, why a dry survey day is not a flood history, and why a survey is not an insurance quote.
- What do trees near a house mean in a survey?
How ABI describes clay, trees and foundation movement, why a tree is not proof of subsidence, and why knotweed is a different problem.
Property types
- What should a survey of a leasehold flat cover?
What a RICS Home Survey can say about a flat, and what stays in the lease: repairs, service charges, Section 20 and ground rent.
- Do you need a snagging survey on a new-build home?
How snagging differs from a RICS Home Survey, and what NHBC says Buildmark covers when that policy is the one you are offered.
- What should you look for in a Victorian or Edwardian terrace survey?
How to read a home survey of a solid-wall terrace: bays, chimneys, cellars and slate roofs, without treating the street as a diagnosis.
- What should a survey of a 1930s semi cover?
Cavity walls, early wall ties, tiled roofs and chimneys on interwar semis, and what a home survey can and cannot confirm.
- What does listing mean for a home survey?
How listed building grades in England and Wales differ from condition ratings, and why consent is not a survey.
- What should a survey of a thatched home cover?
How a home survey describes thatch, what it cannot certify, and why unusual roof coverings often point towards a Level 3.
- How does a survey treat a timber-framed house?
The difference between a historic timber frame and a modern panel frame, and what a visual home survey can say about either.
- What does ex-local-authority or system-built mean on a survey?
Why ‘ex-council’ is not a construction type, how named systems differ, and why mortgageability is a lender question.
- What is different about a survey of a bungalow?
Why the roof, the damp-proof course and the loft matter more in a bungalow, and what a survey does not promise about conversions.
- What can a survey say about a park home?
Why a park home is not a bungalow, what a RICS inspection can see of the shell and chassis, and which papers it does not replace.
- What does a home survey of a barn conversion actually inspect?
What a RICS home survey can say about a barn that has been turned into a house, and which papers it does not replace.
- What survey do you need for shared ownership?
Why a housing association’s share valuation is not a condition survey, and how the ground-rent rules treat shared ownership.
Selling
- Should a seller in England or Wales get a survey?
What is voluntary for sellers in England and Wales, what Scotland requires in a Home Report, and who can rely on the report.
Looking for one question rather than a whole guide? Use the question bank. If the report is already on your kitchen table, decode it.