Leasehold
Your deck is the roof of the flat below, and water stains their ceiling. Which flat's survey has not seen the other ceiling?
The survey of your flat has not seen the ceiling of the flat below. Your deck is the roof over that ceiling, and the water stains are in the other home. Unless the same inspection recorded both, each survey stays inside the flat it was instructed to enter. A stain you are told about is not a ceiling your surveyor inspected. A deck your surveyor walked is not their ceiling. Do not write as if one visit had seen the whole leak path.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
What is the fuller explanation?
Water can travel, and the obvious account is that the deck is to blame. It may be. The point is what was seen. Standing on your deck shows the surface, the falls, the outlets and any crack up there. It does not show the plaster, the stain or the spread on the ceiling underneath. A report from the flat below, if one exists, has the opposite limit: their ceiling, not your build-up. Neither document borrows the other's view.
Ask your surveyor what they could see of the deck and whether they entered the flat below. If they did not, say so to the solicitor and keep the neighbour's stain as their evidence, not as a sentence in your PDF. A quotation should say which side it prices. Do not send a deck price as if the survey had inspected the ceiling, or a ceiling price as if it had opened your covering. The missing view is still missing.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Did you enter the flat below and see the stained ceiling, or only my deck?
- What of the deck surface, outlets and upstands did you actually see?
- Which comments must stay limited to this flat?
What are the typical next steps?
- Do not treat the neighbour's ceiling as seen by your survey.
- Ask whether anyone has inspected both the deck and that ceiling.
- Keep quotations labelled with the side of the leak they actually price.
Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.
Also asked about this
If the neighbour sends a photo, has your survey seen the ceiling?
No. A photograph they took is their evidence. It does not mean your surveyor stood under that ceiling or included it in the inspection of your flat.
If you can hear them below, has the deck been proved to be the leak?
No. Hearing a neighbour is not a view of their ceiling, and it is not a test of the deck. The survey still has not seen the ceiling it did not enter.