Survey costs
The lender mentions a retention until a timber report arrives. Why can your surveyor not delete that retention?
Your surveyor cannot delete the retention because it belongs to the lender, not to the home survey. The lender has said it will hold part of the advance back until a timber report arrives. That is a condition of the loan. It is not a sentence in this inspection that the surveyor can strike out. A mortgage valuation is not a structural survey, and a retention is the lender's own control on the money. This visit can describe timber risk. It cannot cancel what the lender has set.
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?
Lenders use a retention when they want more information, or completed work, before they release the full advance. The trigger here is a timber report that has not yet arrived. Your surveyor did not write the offer and does not administer the mortgage. Even a clear later timber report would go back to the lender, who decides whether the retention still stands. This inspection must not invent the lender's rules or promise that a particular sentence will satisfy them.
Send the timber report, once you have it, to the lender through the route they have given, and copy your solicitor. Do not ask the surveyor to amend the home survey so the retention disappears. If the lender's valuation and this survey disagree, keep them as separate documents: one is the lender's figure and conditions, the other is a condition report. Neither document deletes the other.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Who set the retention: the lender, or this home survey?
- Can the surveyor strike the retention out of the mortgage offer?
- Is the timber report still to be sent back to the lender rather than written into this text?
What are the typical next steps?
- Treat the retention as the lender's condition, not the survey's.
- Send any later timber report to the lender through their route.
- Keep the mortgage offer and the home survey as separate papers.
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
Is the retention the same thing as a down-valuation?
No. A down-valuation is the lender's figure for the property, not a defect list written by the home survey. A retention is a hold on part of the advance until a condition they have set is met. Here that condition is a timber report. This survey did not set either figure and cannot delete either decision.
Will a damp metre reading in the survey cancel the hold?
No. Readings in a home survey, if any were taken, do not administer the mortgage and do not satisfy a timber report the lender has asked for. The surveyor cannot delete the retention. Only the lender can change it, after whatever report they specified has reached them. Do not promise that outcome from this inspection.