Survey costs
Can you hand the reinstatement figure to a roofer as the budget for the slipped slates?
No. You cannot hand the reinstatement figure to a roofer as the budget for the slipped slates. Reinstatement is not a repair budget and it is not the market value. It is a rebuild-style figure used for insurance purposes where a valuation product includes one. The slipped slates need a roofer's quote based on access and the work they will actually do. Offering them the reinstatement number asks them to treat a whole-building rebuild assumption as a small repair.
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 Level 2 can be commissioned as survey only, or as survey plus market valuation and reinstatement. If reinstatement is present, it still does not price the valley, the slipped courses or the scaffold for a patch. Rebuild figures assume a form of wholesale replacement for insurance, with assumptions that are nothing like a local slate repair. MoneyHelper's reminder that a mortgage valuation is for the lender, and is not a structural survey, is a separate point: even the valuation product is not a roofer's estimate. None of these documents is the quote.
Ask the roofer to price the slipped slates, the making good, and the access, in writing. Use that quote if you negotiate or if you plan the work. Leave reinstatement for the insurance conversation it belongs to, and do not ask the seller to knock the reinstatement figure off the price. Do not add it to the market value, and do not divide it by a guessed fraction of roof and call the result the slate budget. There is no national tariff that authorises that division. The survey, if it rated the covering, rated condition. It did not hand you a slate allowance under another name.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Does this instruction include reinstatement, or survey only?
- Confirm reinstatement is not your price for the slipped slates?
- What should the roofer be shown from the report?
What are the typical next steps?
- Get a roofer's quote for the slipped slates.
- Keep reinstatement in the insurance conversation.
- Do not deduct reinstatement from the purchase price.
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 reinstatement is higher than the price, is the roof budget the difference?
No. The difference is not a slate budget. Reinstatement is not market value and not a repair cost.
Can a roofer be told RICS set their ceiling at the reinstatement figure?
No. RICS has not set the roofer's ceiling. The figure is not a repair cap.