Survey costs
A coal-mining search sits on the solicitor's list. Is its fee part of the Level 3 invoice?
No. The coal-mining search fee is not part of the Level 3 invoice. The Coal Authority search is a separate conveyancing search. It sits on the solicitor's list and is charged in that conveyancing, not by the survey firm for the home survey. Level 3 is the inspection and the report. Nothing in the home-survey guidance moves a mining-search disbursement onto the surveyor's bill. Do not guess what a clear search would mean. The search result has to speak for itself.
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 see coal mentioned near a crack and assume one professional has priced both the legal search and the structural look. They have not. The solicitor orders searches that inform title and risk recorded in official data. The surveyor inspects the building you can stand in, within the Level 3 scope you agreed. A fee on the completion statement for a mining search is not a duplicate of the survey fee, and it is not a discount off it. Pay attention to which invoice you are looking at before you accuse either firm of double charging.
If the search comes back in terms you do not understand, ask the solicitor to explain the result that was actually issued. Do not invent a meaning for a clear result, and do not invent a repair price from the fact a search was ordered. The survey, if it comments on movement, is still not the search. The search, if it comments on records, is still not the inspection. Keep both. There is no national tariff that bundles them, and refusing the Level 3 because a search exists would leave the building itself uninspected.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Is any mining-search disbursement inside your Level 3 fee?
- Which building observations are yours, as distinct from a solicitor's search?
- What should I not ask you to interpret from a search you did not order?
What are the typical next steps?
- Pay the mining search through the solicitor's bill.
- Pay the Level 3 through the survey firm's bill.
- Do not invent a meaning for a clear result.
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 both mention the same street, are the fees the same product?
No. One is a conveyancing search. The other is a home survey. The address does not merge the invoices.
Can the surveyor refund the search if the walls look fine?
No. The surveyor did not charge the search, and a visual impression is not a substitute for the search result.