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Subsidence, settlement and heave

What should you ask if a retaining wall in the garden is leaning but the house walls are not?

Ask the surveyor to keep the garden wall separate from the house. A leaning retaining wall can be dangerous and expensive, and it can hold up soil that affects a path or a drain. It is not, by itself, subsidence of the house. A home survey looks at what it can see. It does not design a new retaining wall.

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?

Retaining walls fail by leaning, cracking, and losing the ground behind them, often with no weep holes and with trees in the bank. The house may be metres away and stable. The ABI’s subsidence description is about the building’s foundations. Use it for the house only if the house is moving. A collapsed garden wall is still your problem if you become the owner, and it may affect a neighbour.

GOV.UK’s party-wall guidance can apply to some walls between owners, but not every garden wall is a party wall. Ask your solicitor which boundary it is. Ask a structural engineer or a groundworks firm about the wall if the survey rates it. There is no RICS price for rebuilding one. The height, the length and the soil decide the quote.

What should you ask your surveyor?

  • Is the leaning wall retaining soil, or is it only a boundary fence wall?
  • Is the house cracked on that side, or not?
  • Whose boundary do you think it is, if you could tell?

What are the typical next steps?

  1. Do not prop it with timber and call it repaired.
  2. Keep any price request for the wall separate from a request about the house.
  3. Ask your solicitor about the boundary before you agree to rebuild on the line.

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

Does a home survey include garden walls?

Level 2 and Level 3 look at grounds to the extent the level describes. They do not guarantee every wall. Read the limit if the surveyor could not see behind a fence.

Can a leaning wall affect drains?

It can, if the drain runs at its foot. That is a reason to mention it, not proof the drain has failed.

Sources