The vocabulary problem, in one place
This subject is made harder than it needs to be by three words that mean different things to different professions. It is worth getting them straight before you commission anything.
A RICS Level 2 report is the general condition survey most buyers purchase. A RICS Level 3 building survey is the detailed version, appropriate for older, altered or unusual property. A structural survey is a structural engineer's inspection of the load-bearing fabric specifically - and RICS retired that phrase as a product name, which is precisely why it now means two different things depending on who is saying it.
The practical advice: describe the problem rather than naming a product. Any competent professional will tell you which of the three answers it, and we do that several times a week - including the times the answer is that you want a surveyor and not us.
What a structural survey answers
It is a narrower instrument than a general survey, and that is the point of it. The questions it exists to answer:
- Is this crack significant, and is it still moving?
- Has this building moved, and if so why, and has it stopped?
- Is this wall load-bearing, and what is holding up what?
- Was this alteration - a removed wall, a taken-out chimney breast - ever supported properly?
- Is what I am about to buy structurally sound, and what will putting it right cost?
The answer is usually reassuring
It is worth saying plainly, because the internet on this subject is not reassuring. The great majority of the cracking we are asked to inspect turns out to be thermal movement, shrinkage, a failed lintel, wall tie corrosion, an unsupported alteration or historic settlement that finished decades ago.
We do not carry out repairs and we take no commission from anyone who does, which is what allows 'this is stable, leave it alone' to be a normal answer rather than a lost sale. Where work genuinely is needed, we design it properly.
What it costs, and how long it takes
A structural survey and report is a fixed £580 + VAT, and the report is with you within 10 working days of the inspection, guaranteed. A fixed date matters if you are working to an exchange date.
Focused single-defect inspections, crack monitoring and follow-on design are scoped and quoted individually, in writing, before anything starts.