Leasehold
The inspection was of the flat over the shop. Does the survey read the shop lease as well as the flat lease?
No. An inspection of the flat over the shop does not read the shop lease, and it does not read the flat lease either. The surveyor reports the condition of the parts they were instructed to see. Repairing duties, use clauses and who may run a shop are legal text. Leasehold paperwork is for your solicitor to collect and explain. Do not treat a condition rating as a decision about either document.
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?
Buyers of flats over shops hold one lease and live above someone who may hold another. The two documents can split structure, shopfront, floor and insurance in ways that surprise people. None of that split is visible in a crack. GOV.UK's leasehold pages describe the sort of paperwork solicitors ask for. A home survey is not that pack, and it does not become that pack because the shop was noisy or the ceiling was stained. The surveyor may not even have been given a lease to look at. If they were, interpreting it is still outside the inspection.
Use the survey to decide whether the flat's fabric, as seen, is acceptable. Use the solicitor to decide whether the flat lease makes you pay for the shopfront, the floor between the units, or a problem that starts in the shop. Do not ask the survey firm to say the shop lease is silent, onerous or fine. They have not advised on it. A rating 3 on a visible defect still only means that defect is serious or urgent. It does not invoice the shop tenant and it does not rewrite your lease.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Which parts of the building were inside your inspection, and which were the shop?
- Were any leases given to you to read, or is the report condition only?
- Are you expecting the solicitor, not the survey, to interpret both leases?
What are the typical next steps?
- Instruct your solicitor to read the flat lease and to ask for the shop lease if you need it.
- Do not quote a condition rating as if it allocated repairs.
- Keep shop-use questions out of the survey follow-up.
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 surveyor walked through the shop, did they read the shop lease?
No. Walking through a room is not reading a lease. Condition and legal text stay separate.
Can the flat lease be summarised in the survey PDF?
It should not be treated as the lease. The management pack and the leases are conveyancing documents. The survey is the condition report.