Choosing a survey level
The valuation says the property is suitable security and the survey rates the roof 3. Why can both sentences exist?
Both sentences can exist because they answer different questions for different clients. The valuation says the property is suitable security for the lender. MoneyHelper is clear that a mortgage valuation is not a structural survey. The home survey, instructed to look at condition, has given the roof a rating of 3. Neither sentence cancels the other. Suitable security is the lender's commercial judgement about the loan. The roof rating is the surveyor's condition comment to you. They are allowed to stand side by side.
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?
A lender asks whether this property can support the mortgage it is considering. That answer can be yes even where a buyer's surveyor marks the roof as needing attention, because the lender is not writing you a condition report. The survey you instructed is the document that rates the roof. It does not lend the money, and the valuation does not re-roof the house. Reading them as a contradiction assumes they were trying to say the same thing. They were not.
Use the roof rating for your own questions about the covering, and use the valuation only as the lender's security comment. Do not invent a rule about whether the lender must withdraw, or must ignore the roof, because no such rule sits in either sentence. Your solicitor and your broker can tell you what the offer actually requires. The survey has not become wrong because the valuer used the words suitable security.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Which document rates the roof, and which document is only the valuation?
- Does the valuation claim to be a condition report on that roof?
- What roof defects sit behind the rating, separate from the security sentence?
What are the typical next steps?
- Keep the lender's security sentence and the roof rating in separate columns.
- Do not treat suitable security as a clearance of the roof.
- Ask your solicitor what the mortgage offer actually requires.
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 lender calls it suitable security, must the roof rating be wrong?
No. The rating can be right and the security sentence can still be right, because they are different jobs. MoneyHelper's point is that this valuation is not a structural survey. A lender's comfort about security does not edit the surveyor's roof note, and it does not mean the covering was passed.
Does a roof rating of 3 cancel the valuation figure?
No. The rating does not cross out the valuer's figure, and the figure does not cross out the rating. One is condition on the roof. The other is a security comment for the lender. You can be told the property is suitable security and still have a roof the survey has marked. Act on the roof note itself.