After the survey
What further investigations can a survey ask for?
Further investigation means someone else looks at a part the home survey could not settle. Where a part was not inspected and the surveyor is concerned, RICS says the report should name the investigation. That may be electrics, drains, timber, structure or knotweed. It is a new instruction unless your terms included it.
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 a home survey stop where it stops?
Because the level you bought is a visual inspection with agreed limits. Surveyors do not lift fitted floors, empty lofts, or test circuits as an electrician would. When they are worried about something they could not see, the Home Survey wording is to say what further investigation is needed. That sentence is the product working, not the product failing.
A Level 3 gives more advice about consequences. It does not become a structural calculation, a drain camera, or an EICR. If you wanted those, they are extra instructions.
Who do you actually phone?
Match the sentence. Damp and timber notes go to a specialist who will explain cause, not only sell a treatment; there are guides on this site for damp, rot and woodworm. Cracks the surveyor thinks may be structural go to a structural engineer, not to the same firm that injects walls. Drains go to a firm that will camera them and give you the video. Electrics go to a person who can produce an EICR. Knotweed goes to a firm that will identify the plant; the knotweed guide cites the RICS standard and GOV.UK.
One firm that offers all of those from a leaflet is a reason to slow down. The survey named a question. Hire for that question.
Do you need the result before exchange?
RICS’s rating 3 text is about quotations before legal commitment, not about every follow-up in the first year you own the house. A drip from a gutter you can see may wait. A floor that may be rotting under the only bathroom may not. The surveyor’s words ‘before commitment’ and ‘in the normal course of maintenance’ are the sorting. If you cannot get the specialist in before you would be committed, you are back to the walking-away question: will you buy without the answer?
Nobody on this page knows the waiting time in your town. Phone and ask. Do not inherit a number of days from an article.
Who pays, and who can rely on the second report?
Usually the buyer pays, because the buyer wants the answer. A seller sometimes pays to keep the sale. The report belongs to the client named on it. If you want to rely on a seller’s damp report, ask that firm whether they will extend reliance. If they will not, you have a document you can read and no duty of care you should invent.
Quotes for work are not the same as diagnostic reports. A builder’s price to ‘sort the damp’ is a quote. It may be what RICS meant by a written quotation. It is not a cause. If the cause is the thing the survey left open, get the cause named before you accept the price.
Common questions
Will the original surveyor do the further investigation?
Sometimes, if it is within their competence and you agree a fee. Often it is a different profession. Read what they recommended. ‘Further investigation by a specialist’ means they are not offering to do it inside the original fee.
Do you need three quotes for every rating 3?
RICS says written quotations before commitment, not a particular count of them. One clear quote can be enough to decide. Three quotes are a buying habit, not a clause in the rating. For a complex repair, more than one price is how you learn the range. This site does not invent that range.
The seller already has a damp report. Can you use it?
Read it, including who it was written for and how old it is. If the firm will not confirm you may rely on it, treat it as information, and decide whether you need your own. A report addressed to a seller who wanted a particular outcome is still worth reading. It is not automatically yours.
The survey says ‘seek structural advice’. Is a builder enough?
A builder can price a repair they understand. Structural advice means a structural engineer when the surveyor has said the cause or the support is unclear. Using the builder as the engineer is how assumptions get built into the wall. If the report names an engineer, believe the noun.
Should you camera the drains whenever drainage is NI?
NI with no concern is a limit. NI with a recommendation, or a slow gully the surveyor did see, is a reason. Camera surveys are the investigation. They are not compulsory because the word drain appeared. Read the drainage guide.
Does every purchase need an EICR?
No. An EICR is the electrical investigation, and it is compulsory in some rented homes under the regulations the electrics guide cites. A purchase is not those regulations. Commission one when the surveyor has seen something dangerous, when the installation looks improvised, or when you want the test the survey could not do. Do not commission one because a checklist said always.
The specialist contradicts the survey. Who is right?
They may both be, on different questions. The surveyor saw a symptom within a visual limit. The specialist opened it up or tested it. Take the tested evidence on the point that was tested, and ask the surveyor if it changes their advice. Do not throw either document away in the group chat.
What do these reports cost?
This page does not know. Firms quote after they know the house and the question. Any number printed here would be invented. Ask two firms for the investigation the survey described, and label their answers as quotes, not as facts from RICS.
Sources
Key facts
- Who asks
- The surveyor recommends. You instruct. The seller may agree access and may refuse it.
- What it is not
- Not a free return visit, not a guarantee, and not a price you can lift from the original report.
- Rating 3
- RICS links rating 3 to repair, replacement or investigation that is urgent, and to written quotations before legal commitment.
- NI
- Not inspected. Investigation is for the NI items the surveyor is worried about, not for every NI on a garden fence.