Reading the report
What is still undone when a report asks for another inspection?
Further investigation means the surveyor has not finished that question. It is advice to instruct someone else, not a booking already made and not a condition rating. NI means not inspected. A limitation explains what was not opened. None of those words is a repair price.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless a source says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
Why does asking for a specialist not put that person in the diary?
The sentence is aimed at you. It says the visual inspection could not answer the point, and that someone with a different brief should look. RICS describes the home survey as the inspection you instructed. A drain camera, an electrical report or a structural engineer is a new instruction, with its own scope and its own fee. Nobody has been appointed because the paragraph exists.
Do not diary the original surveyor and call that the further investigation, unless they have agreed in writing to do that extra work. Do not tell a lender the extra report has been done. The PDF in your hand is still only the first visit.
How is a limitation different from NI and from a condition rating?
A limitation says what was in the way. Stored boxes, a locked room, snow on a roof, or a floor covering left down are reasons a surveyor writes a limit. The limit describes the visit. It does not describe the hidden part as sound. NI is the mark RICS uses when that element was not inspected. A condition rating applies to what was inspected.
Read them as three different tools. If the roof is NI, there is no rating for the roof. If the roof is rating 2 and a sentence says the valleys were not seen, the rating is about what was seen and the valleys remain outside it. Do not promote a limitation into a pass, and do not promote NI into rating 1.
Who should instruct the next inspection, and what does it not replace?
You instruct it, or you agree that the seller will, with the report addressed so you can rely on it. A seller's contractor, already on site for the seller, is not automatically your adviser. Ask who instructed them, what they opened, and whether the writing is yours to use. Your solicitor chases papers. The surveyor does not renegotiate the price.
The extra report does not rewrite the home survey, and the home survey does not become the extra report. Keep both. If you are in Scotland, a Home Report uses its own repair categories. Do not translate the word urgent on that pack into the English phrase further investigation, or into rating 3.
Common questions
The survey recommends a drain camera. Has that camera already been ordered?
No. The recommendation is the advice. A camera survey is a further instruction. Until someone has booked it, and you know whose report it will be, it has not happened. A look down an open manhole on the day of the home survey is not that camera.
A limitation says furniture was not moved. Does that clear the floor beneath the sofa?
No. The limitation is the reason that floor was not seen. Unseen is not sound. If you need that area included, ask for access and a further look. Do not tell a lender the floors were cleared.
The roof is marked NI because of the surveyor's ladder limit. Is the covering a pass?
No. NI means not inspected. A ladder limit explains why. It does not award rating 1, and it does not say the covering will do. What you have is a statement that the roof was outside the visit.
Is opening-up included in the fee already paid for this inspection?
Only if the firm agrees a new scope. The fee you paid was for the inspection they have written. Opening a floor, testing a drain or sampling a material is different work. Ask what they will and will not do, and whether it is a new appointment.
A builder the seller already uses offers to sort the point in the report. Whose instruction is that?
The seller's, unless you change it. A contractor instructed by the seller answers the seller. Ask for the written brief, what was opened, and whether you may rely on the paper. A verbal offer on a viewing is not your report.
Is an unfinished question on one element a verdict that the whole house is unsound?
No. It means one question is unfinished. Other elements may be rating 1 or 2. RICS ratings describe what was inspected. An unfinished question is not a verdict on the whole house, and it is not a reason to invent a price cut.
You are buying in Scotland and the Home Report says a repair is urgent. Why is that label not an instruction you copy from an English report?
Scotland's Home Report is a different product, with its own categories. Urgent on that pack is not rating 3, and it is not the English sentence that asks you to instruct a specialist. Read the category definitions in the Home Report. Do not translate them across the border.
Rating 2 and a further-investigation sentence sit on the same element. Which one do you follow?
Both, for different jobs. Rating 2 means RICS regards the defects as needing repair or replacement but not as serious or urgent. The sentence says something about that element was still unsettled. Get the investigation before you treat the rating as the last word on the hidden part.
Sources
Key facts
- Further investigation
- The survey has not settled that point. The next look is a separate instruction.
- A limitation
- What the visit could not do: furniture not moved, a hatch screwed shut, a roof seen only from the ground.
- NI
- Not inspected. RICS uses it when that part was not inspected. It is not a pass.
- Not a rating
- Rating 1, 2 and 3 describe condition of what was inspected. They do not hire the specialist.