Condition ratings
The front is rendered and the flanks are fair-faced brick. Can those faces carry different condition ratings?
Yes. A rendered front and fair-faced brick flanks can carry different condition ratings. Render is a coat. Fair-faced brick is the masonry itself. One face can need work while another does not. Read each elevation's number beside its own paragraph, and do not paint the flanks with the front's rating because they belong to one house.
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?
Fair-faced brick is brick you can see, with its mortar joints. Render is a coating that hides the face underneath. They weather differently, they fail differently, and the surveyor can judge them differently. Rating 1 means no repair is currently needed on that face. Rating 2 means a repair or replacement is needed but it is not serious or urgent. Rating 3 means serious, urgent, or both, and written quotations before legal commitment. A hollow, cracked front coat can be rating 3 while the flanks, if the brick is sound, stay at rating 1. The reverse is just as possible. The definitions apply to the element in front of the surveyor, not to the house as a single score.
The what to do now note advises you about the face that is rating 3. It does not invoice the seller to render the flanks, or to hack off a front that was rating 1. Where render covers the front, the brick behind that coat is concealed and is not guaranteed sound. Rating 1 on render is not a certificate of the substrate, and a flank you could see is not evidence for the hidden front. If a crack runs from the rendered front onto a fair-faced return, the report should say so. Until it does, keep the numbers on the faces they were given.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- What rating did you give the rendered front, and what rating the flanks?
- Does any defect cross from the coat onto the fair-faced brick?
- Is the brick behind the render concealed, and therefore outside the front rating?
What are the typical next steps?
- Read each elevation beside its own rating.
- Do not average the front and the flanks.
- Quote only the face the report has marked as needing work.
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 one flank is rating 3, does the other flank follow?
No. Left and right are separate looks unless the report says the same defect is on both.
Can decoration of the render be rating 2 while the brick flanks are rating 1?
Yes. Tired render coating can need ordinary repair while fair-faced brick needs nothing now.