Renegotiating or walking away
A builder has quoted to inject the walls and the survey's damp note is a leaking gutter. Why should that quote not be sent to the seller as the cost of the defect the survey named?
It should not be sent as that cost because the survey named a leaking gutter, and the quote is for injecting the walls, which is a different job. The price of a treatment the report did not specify is not the cost of the defect the report did name. Sending it to the seller presents a damp-proofing bill as if the survey had diagnosed rising damp and specified injection. It did not. The named defect is the gutter. The quote answers something else.
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?
A leaking gutter wets the wall from the outside. Injection is a treatment people sell for moisture from the ground. They are not interchangeable, and a builder's figure for one is not evidence of the cost of the other. The survey's note gives you a reason to repair the gutter and to see whether the wall then dries. It does not give you a specification for injection, and it does not give you a sum. Using the wrong quote imports a cause the report did not write.
Get a quote for the gutter the survey named, and keep the injection figure out of the papers you send unless a later investigation has actually specified it. Tell the solicitor the defect in the report is the gutter. Do not dress the injection price up as the survey's conclusion. If you renegotiate, renegotiate the defect that was written down, not a treatment chosen beside it.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- What defect did the survey actually name, as against what the builder priced?
- Does the report specify injection, or a leaking gutter?
- Which quote matches the named defect if you are going to use one at all?
What are the typical next steps?
- Do not send the injection quote as the cost of the gutter.
- Get a figure for the defect the survey named.
- Keep any later damp treatment separate until it is actually specified.
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 wall is stained under the gutter, is injection the repair?
Not on the survey's note. The named defect is the leaking gutter. Staining below it fits water from that gutter. An injection quote prices a different treatment. Sending that quote to the seller as the cost of the defect would swap the cause. Repair the water source the report wrote down before anyone specifies a wall treatment.
Can several builders' injection prices be averaged into the gutter cost?
No. Averaging the wrong job still prices the wrong job. The survey named a leaking gutter, not injection. Those figures are not the cost of the defect in the report, and this survey did not publish a cost at all. If you want a number for the gutter, ask for the gutter. Do not invent one from a treatment that was not specified.