Survey costs
An online forum states a typical cost to rebuild a chimney. Why must you not deduct that sum from the purchase price?
Because a forum figure is not this chimney and the report never adopted it. Someone else's stack, in another year, with another scaffold, is not a quote you can subtract from the price. RICS does not publish forum averages as deductions. If the chimney needs work, the usable numbers are contractor quotes for this stack. Until those exist, a deduction based on the forum is a number you invented, even if the post looked confident.
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?
Forums collapse different jobs into one cheerful total. Rebuilding a pot is not the same as taking down a leaning breast, replacing leadwork, or rebuilding from the loft. Access, height and whether the neighbour's half is involved all change the quote, and a national tariff for none of that exists. The survey, if it commented on the chimney, commented on condition. It did not attach the forum's sum, and you should not glue that sum onto the paragraph in the margin and call the result the surveyor's arithmetic.
A price negotiation can still happen, but the honest basis is quotes, or a clearly labelled allowance you admit is yours. Do not tell the seller the report requires a deduction of a typical forum cost. It does not. Do not tell your lender that a webpage has valued the defect. If you walk away, walk away because the unknown or the quotes are more than you will bear, not because a stranger's average has the status of a bill. There is no RICS table that turns that average into a compulsory price cut.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- What did you see on this chimney that a quote should cover?
- Did you publish a rebuild cost?
- Which parts of the stack were concealed?
What are the typical next steps?
- Ignore the forum total when you write to the seller.
- Get chimney quotes that describe this stack.
- Label any private allowance as yours, not as the report's.
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 several forums agree, does the sum become usable?
No. Agreement between webpages is still not a quote for this chimney and still not a RICS deduction.
Can the agent be told the survey priced the stack at the forum figure?
No. The survey did not. Passing the forum figure off as the survey is misleading.