Choosing a survey level
Should a HomeBuyer-style report, seen beside a cellar marked NI, be treated as a verdict on a building survey you have not commissioned?
No. A HomeBuyer-style report with a cellar marked NI is not a verdict on a building survey you have not commissioned. The letters record that the cellar was not inspected in this report. They are not a finding about the cellar's condition, and they are not a Level 3. The visit covered what that HomeBuyer-style scope actually entered. The cellar was marked out of it. You still do not have the building survey. Nothing in the NI mark decides what that other product would have said.
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?
HomeBuyer-style reports sit at the level many buyers know as a mid-level survey. A building survey is the fuller product, often called Level 3, and it is a separate instruction. Marking a cellar NI means this report did not inspect it: locked, unsafe, excluded, or simply not entered. An uninspected cellar can be dry or wet or structurally poor. The letters do not choose. Treating them as a stand-in for the survey you did not buy borrows a blank and calls it a result. The blank is the result.
If the cellar matters, ask a firm what a building survey would include and instruct that product, with access arranged. Do not ask anyone to upgrade the NI mark into a description. Tell the solicitor the cellar was not inspected. Until a report that entered it exists, its condition stays unknown. The HomeBuyer-style document has finished its job by saying it did not look. It has not done the other job.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Why was the cellar marked NI in this report?
- What access would a building survey need in order to enter it?
- Are you treating NI as a description of condition?
What are the typical next steps?
- Read NI as the cellar not having been inspected.
- Do not treat this report as the building survey you have not commissioned.
- Instruct that fuller survey separately if the cellar must be entered.
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
Does NI on the cellar mean the cellar is sound?
No. The letters mark that the HomeBuyer-style report did not inspect the cellar. They are not a clean result and not a description of the space. Soundness was not decided. Condition stays unknown until a survey that enters the cellar has reported.
What would you still need if you want the cellar opened?
A further instruction, typically a building survey, with access agreed so the cellar can be entered. You have not commissioned that product. The NI mark does not supply it. Ask the firm to confirm scope before they attend, and tell the solicitor the cellar remains uninspected.