Renegotiating or walking away
The lender has named a retention sum and the survey gives no figure. Why must you not treat the survey as the source of that sum?
You must not treat the survey as the source because the survey gives no figure, and the retention sum was named by the lender. A retention is the lender holding back part of the mortgage until work it cares about is done. That sum is the lender's condition. MoneyHelper is plain that a mortgage valuation is not a structural survey. Even if the lender's valuer prompted the retention, the buyer's survey did not price it and did not invent the amount. The report with no figure is not where the number came from.
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?
Buyers lay the lender's letter beside the survey and assume the sum is a repair cost the surveyor calculated and forgot to type. If the survey gives no figure, there is nothing to lift out of it. The lender may have used its own valuation, its own criteria and its own list of works. Those criteria are not in this report, and they should not be guessed. Asking the survey to own the sum asks it to have written a number it did not write.
Ask the lender, or the broker, what the retention is for and how it is released. Keep that correspondence away from the survey text. Tell the solicitor the figure is the lender's. Do not renegotiate with the seller by presenting the retention as the survey's estimate of cost. The home survey has not priced the works and has not set the sum the lender named.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Where, if anywhere, does the survey state a retention figure?
- What has the lender said the retention is for?
- Are you keeping the lender's sum separate from the survey text?
What are the typical next steps?
- Treat the retention sum as the lender's, not the survey's.
- Ask the lender what the sum covers and how it is released.
- Do not present the survey as the source of a figure it does not contain.
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 lists the same defect, did it also set the sum?
No. Listing a defect is not pricing a retention. The survey gives no figure. The lender named the sum. A mortgage valuation is not a structural survey, and neither document should be blended into one imaginary bill. The defect can be real in the report while the amount remains the lender's alone.
Can the surveyor be asked to confirm the lender's arithmetic?
Only if you instruct them to do a new piece of work, which this report has not done. The survey gives no figure, so it cannot confirm a sum it never calculated. The lender's retention stands on the lender's letter. Do not treat a request for comfort as evidence the original survey was the source.