Renegotiating or walking away
You may walk away and you have already paid for a damp report and a drain camera. Why do those fees not become a repair credit inside the home survey?
Those fees do not become a repair credit inside the home survey because they are what you paid other people for their own reports. The damp report and the drain camera are separate instructions. The home survey does not hold them as a credit, does not owe you the seller's money, and does not rewrite itself into a bill against the house. Walking away leaves you with the reports you bought. It does not convert their fees into a repair figure printed in the survey.
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?
Specialist fees are costs of deciding whether to buy. They sit with you. A repair credit would be a sum the seller allows against work the building needs, agreed in the sale, not a refund invented inside someone else's inspection. The home survey describes condition. It does not run an account between you, the damp firm and the drain contractor. Their invoices stay their invoices. Nothing in the survey adds those invoices up and calls the total a credit.
If you walk away, treat the fees as spent on information, and ask the solicitor about any contractual position in the sale rather than looking for a line in the survey. If you stay, any price talk is about defects, not about reimbursing your consultants through the wording of the report. Do not ask the surveyor to insert a credit. That number is not a finding, and the survey has nowhere to put it.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Where in the home survey would a repair credit for these fees be written?
- Who was paid for the damp report and the drain camera?
- Does walking away turn those invoices into a sum the survey can award?
What are the typical next steps?
- Treat the specialist fees as your costs of enquiry.
- Do not look inside the home survey for a repair credit.
- Ask the solicitor about the sale, not the surveyor about a refund.
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 damp report found nothing, is the fee refundable by the survey?
No. A clear damp report is still the damp specialist's work, and you paid for it. The home survey does not refund that fee and does not hold it as a repair credit. Walking away does not change the invoice into a defect. The information was the thing purchased, whether or not it showed a repair.
Can the seller be required by the survey to repay the camera?
The survey cannot require that. It does not award costs and it does not contain a repair credit for the camera. Any argument about money between buyer and seller is for the solicitor in the transaction. The drain film remains a report you commissioned, not a credit note inside the home survey.