Condition ratings
No access is recorded to the understairs cupboard. Why must you not describe the electrics in that cupboard as satisfactory?
You must not describe those electrics as satisfactory because no access is recorded to the understairs cupboard, so they were not seen. NI means not inspected, not a pass. Satisfactory would read as rating 1, which means no repair currently needed, and that label cannot be applied to a cupboard that was not opened. The survey did not test the electrics. The report’s no-access note is the finding. Anything inside stays unknown.
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?
Understairs cupboards often hide the consumer unit, meters or junction boxes. A shut door is the whole of the evidence about them on this visit. You cannot borrow a pass from lights that worked elsewhere in the house, because those lights are not an inspection of the unseen cupboard. Rating 2 means defects that need repair but are not serious or urgent, and rating 3 means serious and/or urgent repair, replacement or investigation. Neither rating, nor a clean bill, can be invented for fittings that stayed behind the door.
Ask the seller for access and, if the electrics in that cupboard matter, have them inspected once the door is open. A lender may treat no access as unfinished, not as a pass. Do not write “satisfactory” into your own note of the survey. The home survey has not tested the installation and has not rated what it could not see. When access is given, that look is a further inspection, not a silent upgrade of this one.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Which sentence records no access to the understairs cupboard?
- What electrical equipment is said to be inside, if anything?
- Does the report give any rating to fittings it did not see?
What are the typical next steps?
- Leave the cupboard electrics undescribed as satisfactory.
- Seek access before anyone comments on what is inside.
- Do not convert no access into a pass.
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 a modern consumer unit elsewhere clear this cupboard?
No. Equipment you can see elsewhere is not the understairs cupboard. No access is recorded there, and NI means not inspected, not a pass. The survey did not test the electrics in that cupboard. A tidy unit in another room does not make the unseen fittings satisfactory.
Can rating 1 be assumed where the report is silent?
No. Rating 1 means no repair currently needed, and silence plus a locked door is not that finding. NI means not inspected, not a pass. The report records no access. You must not fill the silence with satisfactory, or with any rating the surveyor did not give to fittings that were not seen.