A ceiling stain was dry when the surveyor visited. Can it still be rating 2 or rating 3?

What is the fuller explanation?

A stain records that water has been there. Dry to the touch on the day of inspection means it was not dripping then. Roofs and pipes do not perform for the surveyor. Rating 1 would mean no repair is currently needed, which may be right if the surveyor is satisfied the cause has gone and only decoration remains as maintenance. Rating 2 is a repair or replacement that is needed but is not serious or urgent, which fits a stain whose source should be mended without being an emergency. Rating 3 is serious, urgent, or both, even if the ceiling happened to be dry at lunchtime, and that is when you get written quotations before legal commitment. Dryness does not choose among those three.

The what to do now note advises you. It does not invoice the seller, and it does not downgrade a rating 3 because the plaster was dry. The source, a valley, a bath waste or a flat roof, may be a different element with its own number. Concealed timbers above a stain are not guaranteed sound. Ask the surveyor whether they think the leak is historic or still live, and which element carries the rating. Do not repaint the stain in your mind and call it resolved. A decorator's coat, later, does not replace the rating they gave.

What should you ask your surveyor?

• Is this dry stain rating 1, 2 or 3, and why?
• Do you think the source is historic or still able to wet the ceiling?
• Is the source a different element from the stained plaster?

What are the typical next steps?

1. Do not read a dry stain as rating 1 unless the report does.
2. Ask which element the number sits on.
3. If it is rating 3, get written quotations before you commit.

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

Which pages should you read next?

• One bedroom stayed locked. Why can damp comments for that room be NI when the hall was rated?
• Staining directly under a window is called penetrating damp. Why is that not the same box as a tide mark at skirting level?
• The lender's figure is short of the agreed price and the only survey note on the roof is a rating 2. Why is the shortfall not a translation of that rating into pounds?
• Guide: What do condition ratings 1, 2, 3 and NI mean?
• All UK home survey questions

Sources

• RICS: Description of the RICS Home Survey Level 3 (condition rating definitions)
• RICS: What to do now (consumer PDF linked from the RICS home survey guide)
• RICS: RICS Home Surveys (Home Survey Standard)