Leasehold

A notice of intention for major works is in the pack and the survey does not mention it. Whose document is the notice?

The notice is the landlord's or the managing agent's document, not the surveyor's. A notice of intention for major works is a consultation paper about works the landlord proposes. It sits in the legal pack because someone on that side served it. The survey does not mention it because a condition report is not a commentary on every paper the solicitor holds. Silence in the survey does not cancel the notice, and it does not mean the surveyor wrote it. The notice belongs to the person who served 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?

Major-works consultation is a landlord process. The notice tells leaseholders that works are proposed and invites observations. It is not a description of what a surveyor found on a given afternoon, and it may concern works the visit could not see or that have not started. The surveyor was not instructed to audit that paper or to price the scheme. Leaving it out of the report is not a finding that the notice is spent. It is a boundary between a building inspection and a legal pack.

Ask the solicitor whose notice it is, what works it describes, what stage the consultation has reached, and what you would be asked to pay if the works proceed. Do not ask the survey to become that advice by a later footnote. The survey has not costed the works and has not said the notice is valid or invalid. Those questions stay with the solicitor and the landlord's papers.

What should you ask your surveyor?

Did your inspection comment on consultation papers, or only on the building?
Which defects did you see that the notice might, or might not, relate to?
Have you left the status of the notice entirely outside the report?

What are the typical next steps?

Treat the notice as the landlord's or agent's document.
Ask the solicitor what works it proposes and what stage it has reached.
Do not read the survey's silence as a cancellation of the notice.

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 survey never quotes the notice, has the notice expired?

No. Expiry is a legal question about the consultation, and the survey has not decided it. The notice is in the pack because the landlord's side produced it. The report's silence means the surveyor did not write about that paper. It does not date the notice or end it.

Could the surveyor be the author because the pack was on the table?

No. Papers on a table do not change their author. The notice of intention is served by the landlord or the agent. The survey is the surveyor's condition report. Sharing a pack does not make one the writer of the other, and the survey has not adopted the notice by leaving it unmentioned.