The survey is the point in a sale where the buyer stops looking at your house through an estate agent’s photographs and starts looking at it through a surveyor’s eyes. For a lot of sellers, it’s also the point where a sale that felt safe suddenly isn’t. Understanding what the surveyor is doing, what they’re likely to find and how buyers respond to the report takes most of the anxiety out of it, and it helps you prepare so the findings don’t knock the sale off course.
Who Commissions The Survey And Why
The buyer commissions and pays for the survey, and it’s separate from the mortgage valuation their lender carries out. The valuation protects the lender; the survey protects the buyer. Many buyers skip the survey altogether on newer homes, but on anything older than a few decades, or anything with visible wear, most will have one done, and their solicitor will usually recommend it.
From your side, the survey happens a week or two after the offer’s accepted, takes anywhere from an hour to a full day depending on the level, and you’ll need to provide access to every part of the property, including the loft, any cellar, outbuildings and the garage.
The Three Levels Of Survey
RICS surveys come in three levels, and the one your buyer chooses tells you something about how cautious they are.
- Level 1, the Condition Report, is a basic visual check that uses a traffic light system to flag the condition of each element. It’s quick, cheap and best suited to modern homes in good order.
- Level 2, the HomeBuyer Report, is the most common choice. The surveyor inspects everything accessible, comments on defects and urgent repairs, and can include a valuation. It doesn’t involve lifting floorboards or moving furniture.
- Level 3, the Building Survey, is the full inspection, used for older, larger or unusual properties and anything that’s been extended or altered. The surveyor examines the structure in detail, explains causes of problems and estimates repair costs.
A buyer who chooses Level 3 on an ordinary 1970s semi is either very careful or already worried about something.
What Surveyors Most Often Flag
Surveyors are paid to find problems, and they’re thorough about recording them. The issues that come up most often, and that most often lead to a renegotiation, are:
- Damp, whether rising, penetrating or condensation, which almost always triggers a recommendation for a specialist report
- Roof condition, including slipped tiles, worn flashings, moss and the state of the timbers if the loft is accessible
- Electrics, where older consumer units or wiring prompt a recommendation for an electrical inspection
- Structural movement, from historic settlement cracks to active subsidence
- Timber problems, such as rot in window frames, floor joists or roof timbers
- Drainage, including blocked gullies, cracked inspection chambers and signs of leaks
- Japanese knotweed and other invasive plants
- Missing certificates for boilers, electrics, windows and building work
Most of these are routine on an older house. The trouble comes from how they’re presented, because a Level 2 report that says “further investigation recommended” six times reads to a nervous buyer like a house falling down.
How Findings Turn Into Delays
A survey rarely kills a sale on its own. What it does is set off a chain of events that each take time.
The buyer reads the report and asks their solicitor what to do. The solicitor raises enquiries with your solicitor about the flagged items. The buyer commissions a specialist report on the damp or the electrics, which takes another week or two to arrange. If the specialist finds work needed, the buyer’s lender may impose a retention, and the buyer comes back asking for a price reduction. You get quotes to test the figure. Negotiations go back and forth. Six weeks have passed, and if you’re in a chain, everyone above and below you has been waiting the whole time.
How To Handle A Renegotiation
If the buyer asks for a reduction after the survey, keep three things in mind. First, ask to see the full report, not a summary of the scary bits. Second, get your own quote for any work the surveyor recommends, so you’re negotiating from a real figure. Third, separate what’s a defect from what’s simply an old house being described accurately. A 1930s property with original windows isn’t defective because the windows are old.
A reduction close to the quoted cost of a real problem is usually worth accepting to keep the sale alive. A reduction that’s double the cost, or that cites things visible at the viewing, is a buyer looking for a discount or an exit.
Reducing The Risk Before The Survey Happens
You can’t control what the surveyor writes, but you can control what they find and how prepared your buyer is for it. Get the loft cleared and accessible. Fix the dripping tap and the cracked gutter. Gather your certificates and guarantees so the solicitor’s enquiries can be answered the same day. If you know the house has a particular issue, consider getting your own specialist report before marketing and sharing it upfront, because a problem the buyer already knew about rarely becomes a reason to renegotiate. There are more ways to avoid a failed house sale than most sellers realise, and most of them involve doing the work before the survey, not after it.
When You’d Rather Skip The Whole Process
Some sellers simply don’t have the time or the appetite for the survey cycle, particularly where the property has known issues that’ll be flagged however well prepared they are. If you’d prefer to sell your house fast and leave the surveying to us, we’ll make an offer within 24 hours, carry out our own survey at our cost, and complete on a date you set. Our offers fall between 70% and 85% of market value, legal fees and the EPC are covered, and the figure you accept is the figure you receive unless the survey turns up something material that wasn’t disclosed.