Seller-side surveys

If you write on the buyer’s PDF that you disagree, have you changed the condition rating?

No. Notes in the margin are your comments, not a new rating and not the surveyor’s opinion. Send any disagreement separately, and do not present an annotated file as if the surveyor had revised it. The number in the report stays until the surveyor changes it.

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?

Sellers understandably want the record straightened: a roof repaired last year, a crack filled, a boiler replaced. The right place for that is a letter, invoices and certificates. Writing across the rating box confuses the next reader about who said what. If a later buyer is shown the file, an annotation can look like part of the report. It is not. Condition ratings 1, 2 and 3, and NI, mean what the RICS definitions say. Your pen does not move an element from 3 to 2.

If you think the surveyor is wrong, ask the buyer’s side to raise it with the firm, or take your own advice. Do not sign the report as accurate, and do not alter it so that it looks accurate to you. The what to do now note is advice to the buyer, not a draft you are entitled to correct. There is no RICS process in which a seller’s handwriting is a revised survey. Keep a clean copy and keep your comments beside it.

What should you ask your surveyor?

Please identify your comments as yours, not as a change to the rating.
Which invoices support the history you want recorded?
Are you asking the surveyor to revise the report, or only noting a disagreement?

What are the typical next steps?

Leave the PDF unedited.
Put your evidence in a separate note.
Do not tell another buyer the rating was reduced unless the surveyor reduced it.

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

Can the agent type your note onto the last page?

Only if it is clearly the seller’s note. It still does not change the rating.

If the surveyor later corrects a mistake, what should you keep?

Keep their correction. That is the document that changes the report. Your earlier handwriting does not.