Survey costs
The survey quote shows a separate disbursement for a mining search. Why is that search not already inside the inspection fee?
The mining search is not inside the inspection fee because a Coal Authority search is a separate product from the home survey. The quote shows it as a disbursement, which means it is paid on as a distinct charge rather than folded into the visit. Walking the house does not search the mining records. The survey fee is for the inspection. The disbursement is for a different enquiry, ordered from outside the inspection. The survey has not, by printing that line, already obtained the search or interpreted a mine entry under this plot.
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?
People expect one fee to swallow every check with the word survey on it. Mining is not that sort of check. The Coal Authority holds records of past and present coal workings. A home surveyor does not carry those records up the loft ladder. Putting the search on the quote as a disbursement is how the firm shows it is extra and separate. If the line were buried in the inspection fee, you would still be buying two products. The quote is simply being explicit.
Ask the firm what the disbursement buys: which Coal Authority product, and whether anyone will read it against the house. Ask your solicitor how that search sits with the other searches they order, so you do not pay twice for the same paper or miss it entirely. The home survey will still only report what the inspection can see. A mining search does not become a structural opinion because it appears on the same quote.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Is the mining search a Coal Authority product billed on top of the inspection?
- Will you interpret the search, or only pass the disbursement through?
- Does the inspection fee stay the same if I decline that search?
What are the typical next steps?
- Treat the mining search as a separate product from the inspection.
- Ask which Coal Authority search the disbursement is for.
- Ask your solicitor whether they are already ordering the same search.
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 house has no visible coal hatch, is the search already done?
No. A hatch, or the lack of one, is something on site. A Coal Authority search is a records product, separate from the home survey. The disbursement has not been answered by looking at the garden. The inspection fee still does not contain that search.
Does paying the disbursement mean the survey will comment on subsidence risk?
Not by itself. Paying for a separate search buys that search. The home survey comments on what it can see in the building. It does not turn a Coal Authority result into an insurance opinion, and it has not yet even received the search.