Seller-side surveys

If you offer a damp-proof guarantee from 1998, does it answer a stain the buyer’s survey has found today?

No. A guarantee from 1998 is a paper about whatever work that contractor described then, not a reading of the stain found on this inspection. Hand it over if you have it. Do not present it as proof the wall is dry now, or ask the buyer to treat the rating as cancelled.

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?

Old guarantees are worth putting in the pack because solicitors ask for them. They show that someone did some work and that a company used a form of words at the time. They do not measure moisture today, they do not identify whether the mark is condensation, a leak, or something else, and they do not bind the buyer’s surveyor. This page does not invent how long that 1998 paper lasts. If the document states a period, the solicitor can read it. If it does not, do not make one up.

The buyer’s rating, if there is one, is about the day of their inspection. Your decoration since 1998 may explain the history. It does not edit their PDF. Offer the guarantee as a document, alongside any later invoices, and let them decide. There is no RICS status that turns a contractor’s old form into a condition rating 1. If you disagree with the stain’s cause, say what you know and, if you want, get your own current advice. A historical certificate is not that advice.

What should you ask your surveyor?

What did you see today, regardless of a guarantee from 1998?
Are you treating an old certificate as a moisture reading? You should not be.
Which papers should the seller hand over without claiming they close the item?

What are the typical next steps?

Give the buyer the 1998 guarantee if you still have it.
Do not say it proves the present stain is harmless.
Keep history and the current finding in separate sentences.

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

What if the guarantee names a different wall?

Then it may not even be history for this stain. Let the solicitor and the buyer compare the address and the elevation.

Should you commission a new damp report as seller?

Only if you want one for your own decision. You do not have to, and it still would not be the buyer’s survey.