Choosing a survey level

A damp firm offers what it calls a survey. Does that document become your RICS Level 2?

It stays a damp firm's document. Calling that visit a survey does not turn it into your RICS Level 2. Level 2 is a defined home survey for a conventional house of simple form in reasonable condition, either survey only or with a market valuation and a reinstatement figure. A trade report on moisture is a specialist paper. The word survey on the cover does not change its job.

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?

Level 2 uses the home-survey condition ratings across the building, within a visual inspection that does not guarantee concealed parts and does not safety-test services. A damp firm may be thorough about the walls it was asked to meter, and it may use the word survey in ordinary speech. That does not make the PDF a Level 2, does not make it a Level 3, and does not make it the Level 1 visual overview either. The three-level names have been the RICS home survey names since 1 March 2021. A contractor's heading is not one of those names.

You can still commission the damp report as the further investigation a home survey asked for. File it as that. If you also need a Level 2, instruct a firm to provide a Level 2 and to write those words on the engagement. Do not pay the damp firm under the impression you have bought the whole-house product. Cost is variable for a genuine Level 2, and there is no national tariff, but the price is not what converts a damp sheet into one. The instruction and the scope do that, and this instruction is about damp.

What should you ask your surveyor?

If I already have a Level 2, will you read the damp firm's paper as something other than your report?
Which damp questions are theirs, rather than a second Level 2?
Will you name your own product Level 2 only when it is that product?

What are the typical next steps?

File the damp firm's document as a damp report.
Instruct a Level 2 separately if that is the home survey you still need.
Do not let the word survey on a trade cover rename the product.

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

Can a damp report be useful without being a Level 2?

Yes. Usefulness is not the same as being the RICS level. Keep it as the specialist follow-up.

If an RICS surveyor works at the damp firm, is the PDF a Level 2?

Only if the instruction is a Level 2 home survey. The author's background does not rename a damp brief.