Choosing a survey level
You are buying in Scotland and someone has called the Home Report an English Level 2. Why is the Home Report a different product, even where a surveyor still walks the house?
The Home Report is a different product because it is the Scottish report a purchaser is pointed to, not an English Level 2 you instruct yourself. In Scotland the seller provides the Home Report, including a Single Survey, an energy report and a property questionnaire. An English Level 2 is the survey a buyer in England or Wales commissions. A surveyor still walking the Scottish house does not rename that pack. Do not force the English level onto it, and do not invent a lifespan the Home Report does not have in this note.
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?
The confusion is understandable. Both involve a surveyor, a house and a written condition comment. The instruction is the difference. You do not choose Level 2 off a menu and send the surveyor as you would in England. You are pointed to the seller's Home Report. The Single Survey inside it has its own form and its own categories. They are not the English condition ratings reprinted under another flag. Reading it as the Level 2 you would have bought will make you argue with the wrong document.
Read the Home Report for what it contains, and ask your solicitor how it is being used in this purchase. If you need advice beyond it, that is a further instruction, not a relabelling of the pack as an English Level 2. A lender may still want its own valuation. That is a separate point. The walk-through by a surveyor is real. It does not change which product you are holding.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Is the document in the pack a Scottish Home Report, including a Single Survey?
- Who provided it: the seller's side, rather than an English Level 2 I instructed?
- Are its categories the ones printed in that pack, not English rating labels?
What are the typical next steps?
- Read the Home Report as the Scottish product, not as an English Level 2.
- Do not rename the Single Survey because a surveyor walked the house.
- Ask your solicitor how this Home Report is being used in the purchase.
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 surveyor is RICS-regulated, does the product become a Level 2?
No. Who employs the surveyor does not change the product. The Home Report is still the Scottish pack a purchaser is pointed to. It is not the English Level 2 you would have instructed yourself. The Scottish pack keeps its own name whoever walked the house.
Can you discard the Home Report and order an English Level 2 instead?
You are buying in Scotland, so start from the Home Report. Extra advice can be commissioned. That extra is not a reason to pretend the Home Report was an English Level 2, and it does not rewrite the pack. Extra advice can sit beside the Home Report without renaming the pack.