Leasehold

An RTM company manages the block and the roof is a rating 3. Who does the survey say will instruct the roof works?

The survey does not say who will instruct the roof works. An RTM company manages the block, and the roof carries a rating 3, which is the survey's condition label. Right to manage is about who runs the building day to day. It does not make the survey the client for the works, and it does not name the RTM company, a landlord or a leaseholder as the person who must place the order. That instruction sits in the RTM papers and the leases. The survey records the roof. It does not appoint anyone to order the work.

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?

Right to manage lets qualifying leaseholders take on management duties through an RTM company. The company then deals with day-to-day management that the landlord's agent might otherwise have done. A rating 3 on the roof is the survey telling you the covering is a serious condition item. It is not an instruction note, and it does not identify the client who will sign a builder's order. The leases still set out repairing duties. The RTM documents show who exercises them. The survey has read neither as a lawyer would.

The solicitor should confirm that an RTM company is in place and should say, from the papers, who instructs roof works and how the cost is recovered. You can show them the rating 3 description so they know the roof is not a passing comment. Do not write to a contractor as if the survey had appointed the RTM company, or you, as employer. The report stops at the condition of the roof.

What should you ask your surveyor?

Have you left the instructing client unnamed?
Is the rating 3 a condition label rather than an order to a builder?
Did you inspect the roof without deciding the RTM paperwork?

What are the typical next steps?

Ask the solicitor who, under the RTM papers, instructs roof works.
Use the rating 3 as the condition note on the roof.
Do not treat the survey as the client for those works.

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 an RTM company mean the landlord has disappeared from the leases?

No. Right to manage changes who manages. It does not, by itself, delete the landlord or rewrite every covenant. The survey has not read that position. The solicitor reads the RTM documents and the leases. The roof rating does not decide it.

Can the survey be addressed to the RTM company as the works client?

Not by this report. The survey was a condition inspection. It does not appoint the RTM company, a director or a leaseholder to place the roof order. Who instructs is in the management papers, which the survey has not rewritten.