Survey costs
A price for replacement tiles alone is not the repair of the roof. What has that price left out, which the rating also does not cost?
It has left out the work of doing the repair. A price for replacement tiles alone is a materials figure. It leaves out labour, access and making good, and the rating does not cost those either. The rating is a condition comment, not a priced schedule, so it will not fill the hole the tile price left. Ask a roofer for a full quote for the work the paragraph describes. Do not add a guessed labour sum and call the total the survey's figure.
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?
Merchants sell tiles by the piece or the square. Roofs are repaired by people, with ladders or scaffold, waste, fixings, and the time to cut and to make the covering weatherproof again. A buyer who multiplies a tile price by a counted number of slips has priced a pallet, not a repair. The survey will not complete that multiplication. It did not count a bill of materials, and it did not publish labour. If underfelt, battens or flashings are involved, a tiles-only price misses those too. Only the roofer's scope shows what they have included.
Use the rating to brief the roofer: here is what was seen, here is what was not seen, please price the repair rather than the tiles in isolation. Compare two full quotes, not a full quote against a merchant's list. There is no national tariff that adds standard labour to a tile price, and you should not invent one in the margin. If the seller offers the tile money as a contribution, call it a contribution toward materials, not the survey's assessed cost of the roof. The survey assessed condition. The roofer, if instructed, assesses the job.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- What should a full roof quote include that a tile price leaves out?
- Which parts of the covering did you not see, so a materials count would be a guess?
- Confirm you have not costed labour anywhere in the rating?
What are the typical next steps?
- Ask a roofer to price labour, access and making good.
- Do not multiply a tile price and call it the repair.
- Do not attribute a labour guess to 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 the tiles are cheap, is the repair cheap?
Not necessarily. Labour and access can dominate, and neither the tile list nor the rating has priced them.
Can the surveyor be asked to add labour later as an official extra?
They can be asked what they saw. They should not be asked to invent a labour price the report never contained.