Condition ratings
A tree is implicated beside a crack. Who investigates the tree, and what does the home surveyor not decide?
A tree specialist investigates the tree. The home surveyor has pointed at it beside the crack and stopped. They do not decide that the tree is the cause, that it must be felled, that it must stay, or who would pay. Those conclusions belong to the investigation you have not yet commissioned, read with whatever legal advice your solicitor gives about the boundary.
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?
Implicating a tree means the surveyor could see a spatial relationship: a crack, and a tree close enough that vegetation is part of the storey they cannot finish visually. It is not a measurement of roots, not a species study, and not a prediction of future movement. An arboriculturist is the person asked to look at the tree itself. A structural engineer may still be the person asked about the crack. One report does not silently complete the other, and the home survey completes neither by mentioning both in one paragraph.
The surveyor also does not decide consent, ownership or liability, and does not serve notices. No survey level guarantees the concealed ground under the wall. Rating the crack, if they rated it, records how serious the visible defect looked, including rating 3 where the matter is serious or urgent. That rating is not a tree-work order. Instruct the tree investigation in writing, ask for a written answer, and keep the survey's crack paragraph as the reason you asked, not as the verdict on the tree.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- What did you see that implicated the tree, short of deciding the cause?
- Are you leaving both cause and any tree work to other people?
- Do you want an engineer on the crack as well as a tree specialist?
What are the typical next steps?
- Instruct an arboriculturist to investigate the tree.
- Keep any structural question about the crack as its own instruction.
- Do not treat the survey sentence as a decision to fell or to keep the tree.
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 neighbour owns the tree, does the surveyor write to them?
No. The survey does not decide ownership and does not run the correspondence.
Does a small crack mean the tree can be ignored?
Not if the report implicated it. Size of crack is the surveyor's rating. The tree investigation is still separate.