Survey costs
The roof needs scaffold and you are buying one flat. Does the survey split that scaffold cost between the flats?
No. The survey does not split the scaffold cost between the flats. It may describe the roof and why access is awkward. It does not calculate one flat's share, and it does not amend the lease. Who pays is a question for the lease, the management papers and your solicitor. Do not invent an equal division and present it as the report's arithmetic. The report did not do that sum, and a condition paragraph is not a service-charge account.
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?
Scaffold for a roof over several flats is often a shared practical problem and a legal problem. The practical problem is that someone may need access above your ceiling to repair a covering you do not solely own. The legal problem is which lease clause, which reserve, and which consultation, if any, deals with the bill. The surveyor on a flat inspection is there to tell you about condition they could see, not to apportion contractors' preliminaries between front and back flats, or between you and a freeholder. Any share you type in the margin is your assumption. Label it as an assumption or leave it out.
Ask the solicitor for the lease and the managing agent's papers before you treat scaffold as your personal, entire cost or as nobody's cost. Ask a contractor, if you need figures, what scaffold they think the job needs, and then let the legal advisers discuss who would bear it. There is no national tariff that divides scaffold by the number of doorbells. Do not use the survey rating as if it were that division. The rating, if the roof was commented on, remains a comment on condition. Money between neighbours is not settled by the way a paragraph is worded.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Did you calculate any flat's share of access costs?
- What roof condition did you see without deciding who pays?
- Which papers should the solicitor read that are outside your report?
What are the typical next steps?
- Do not invent an equal scaffold split.
- Ask the solicitor who the lease points to for roof costs.
- Get any scaffold figure from a contractor, not from the rating.
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 there are several flats, is my share the scaffold divided by that count?
The survey does not say so. Shares, if they exist, come from the lease and the management arrangements, not from a headcount you invent.
Does describing the roof make the whole scaffold my bill?
No. Description is not an apportionment. The report has not billed you for the block.