Choosing a survey level
The valuation notes that the cellar was not entered. Is that the same limitation as an NI line on a Level 3?
Not quite. The cellar sentence is a limit written on the mortgage valuation. MoneyHelper describes that valuation as the lender's loan check, not as the structural survey you buy for yourself. An NI line is an entry inside the Level 3 about something that home survey did not inspect. The valuer's note does not travel across and fill that line.
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 two sentences can use similar words and still belong to different jobs. The valuer is telling the lender that the cellar was outside the look they did for the loan. Your Level 3, if you have one, has its own way of marking an element that was not inspected, and that mark sits in the survey you were given as a buyer. Copying the valuation sentence into the survey, or assuming the surveyor meant the same thing because both mention the cellar, mixes the files.
Ask, separately, whether the Level 3 surveyor entered the cellar and what they wrote if they did not. A shut door on the valuation day says nothing about a later visit, and a later visit says nothing about what the valuer told the lender. Concealed or unentered space is not certified sound by either silence or a short note. Keep the valuation limitation in the valuation, and the survey limitation in the survey.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Did your Level 3 enter the cellar, or is there a separate not-inspected line?
- What, if anything, could you see from the cellar door without treating that as an inspection?
- Will you keep the valuation note out of the survey's limitation section?
What are the typical next steps?
- Read the valuation cellar note as a lender-file limit only.
- Check the Level 3 for its own line on the cellar.
- Do not treat one shut door as an answer in both reports.
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 Level 3 is silent about the cellar, is the valuation note enough?
No. Silence in the survey is not filled by a sentence written for the lender.
Does a later key to the cellar rewrite the valuation?
No. Access after the valuation is a new look. It does not edit the lender's earlier note.