Building inspection report template (UK) with examples

A building inspection report describes the condition of a whole building, inside and out, for someone who has to decide what to spend on it: an owner, a landlord, a block manager, an insurer, a buyer. It is the roof survey report's bigger sibling. The same discipline applies, one area at a time with a grade, photographs and a cost, but the list of areas is longer and the readers are more varied.

This guide sets out a template for that report as it is used by UK building surveyors, property inspection firms and contractors who have been asked to look at more than one element. It covers the structure, the grading systems in use, what each area page needs, how to present costs, and the faults that make a report hard to act on. A finished sample is linked at the end so you can compare.

Who the template is for

Three kinds of firm write this report. Building surveyors producing condition reports and planned maintenance surveys for landlords and managing agents. Property inspection firms engaged by block managers, housing associations and small commercial landlords. And roofing or general contractors who are asked, while on site, to report on the brickwork, the rainwater goods and the grounds as well as the roof.

What the template is not is a RICS Home Survey. A Level 2 or Level 3 Home Survey is a product for a house buyer with its own standard format and terms of engagement. The report described here is a condition report for owners and managers, usually with costs, usually followed by work.

The structure, page by page

Part	Purpose
Cover	Building Inspection Report, the property, the client, the date, the inspector
Cover letter	Instruction, scope, access, weather, who attended, a short introduction
Report structure and categories	The grading key explained before it is used
Schedule of condition	One line per area with grade and indicative cost, and a total
One page per area	Condition, recommendation, grade, cost, captioned photographs
Summary	The building in a paragraph
Recommended works	Costed items in priority order
Disclaimer, acceptance, back page	Limitations, signatures, your details

The order matters. Readers who want the answer first get the schedule of condition on page four; readers who want the evidence read on.

Scope and limitations, written down

The cover letter does more work in a building report than in a roof report because the scope is wider and the exclusions are more important. State plainly:

• which parts of the building were inspected: elevations, roofs, grounds, common parts, which flats or rooms;
• how: from ground level, from ladders, from the roof, from a drone, internally;
• what was not inspected and why: locked plant rooms, a flat whose tenant was out, a flat roof with no safe access;
• what was noted but not tested: electrical installations, gas, heating, drainage below ground, lifts;
• the weather and the date.

"Services were noted where visible but not tested" is a sentence that belongs in every report of this kind. Without it, a client will assume the boiler was checked because it was in a photograph.

Grading: three categories, or your own

The grading key is the page that turns a list of observations into a decision. Three systems are common in the UK.

Three repair categories, Cat 1 to 3. The same scale used on roof reports: Category 1, no immediate action; Category 2, future attention, estimates advised; Category 3, urgent now, with a risk to the rest of the property or to safety. Owners who have had a roof report or a Scottish Home Report recognise it at once. It is the default in our building reports and the one to use unless the client asks for something else. The wording and examples are in roof survey categories explained; they apply unchanged to walls, windows and paths.

RICS condition ratings 1 to 3. Used in Home Surveys. The numbers line up roughly with Cat 1 to 3 but carry no costs, and the scale belongs to a buyer's survey rather than a condition report.

A firm's own scale. Planned maintenance surveys often grade on priority (immediate, within one year, one to five years, five to ten years) or on a traffic-light A to D. Larger clients sometimes supply the scale they want. If you use your own, define it on the key page every time, with a colour and a one-line definition for each grade, and never use more than five. On Docutrades, Team accounts can set three to five grades with their own names, colours and definitions and the key page is produced from them; a longer comparison of the systems is in what goes in a building inspection report.

Whichever scale you use, one grade per area. If the front elevation has sound brickwork and a failing parapet, make the parapet its own area.

The schedule of condition

A single table near the front of the report: one row per area, with its grade and indicative cost, and a total. It is the page the block manager puts in front of the committee and the page the landlord forwards to the accountant, so it must stand alone. Order the rows as the area pages run (external, grounds, roof, internal) or by priority; say which. A row looks like this:

Area	Grade	Indicative cost
Front elevation: sandstone and pointing	Cat 2	£2,400 to £3,200
Chimney stacks	Cat 3	£1,800 to £2,400
Rainwater goods	Cat 2	£600 to £900
Rear garden paths and drainage gullies	Cat 1	none

There is a separate guide to schedule of condition templates covering what each row must record and how a schedule for a lease differs from one in a condition report.

One page per area

The body of the report. Each area has the same fields in the same order, and a new area always starts a new page so that photographs never drift away from their text.

The areas

A typical list for a house or a small block, in the order you walk it:

• Front elevation, rear elevation, side elevations
• Brickwork, stonework and pointing
• Render and cladding
• Windows and external doors
• Rainwater goods
• Grounds, paths and drainage
• Car park and hardstanding
• Boundary walls and fencing
• Main roof, flat roofs, chimney stacks
• Common parts: stairwell, entrance, bin store
• Internal rooms where instructed: ceilings, walls, floors, finishes
• Services, noted not tested

Use names the client can picture, and keep them consistent between the schedule and the area pages.

Condition

What the element is made of and what you found, counted where possible, with anything you could not see. From the front elevation of our sample building report:

The front elevation is coursed sandstone. Around 30% of the pointing below the window sills has open joints, and earlier cement repairs are causing the stone face to spall. Window surrounds are sound. No movement cracking was seen.

Recommendation

What to do, in the order you would do it, scaled to the defect. For the elevation above:

Rake out and repoint the open joints below sill level in a lime mortar to match the original, and remove the cement repairs where they are causing spalling. Repointing of the full elevation is not needed at present.

Grade, cost and photographs

The grade with its colour, an indicative cost range, and two to five captioned photographs: one that locates the area on the building and close-ups of each defect, marked with a circle or arrow where the fault is small. A caption says what and where.

An internal example

Internal areas use the same fields. From the sample:

Hairline cracking follows the plasterboard joints in the bedroom 2 ceiling, with no sign of ongoing movement. Fill and redecorate at the next convenient opportunity. Category 1.

Note the restraint. The inspector records what was seen, states the absence of movement rather than guessing at a cause, and grades accordingly. There is more on telling an active defect from a historic one in reporting damp and ceiling stains.

Costs: what they are and what they are not

Indicative ranges per area, with a total on the schedule and again on the recommended works page, do three things for the client: they let the work be prioritised, they let a budget be set for the year, and they give a benchmark for the quotations that follow. They are not quotations. The disclaimer should say so, and the ranges should be wide enough to be honest: a repointing job is priced after a closer look at the joints, not from the pavement.

If your firm never costs in a report, remove the column and say in the cover letter that costs will follow from the contractors.

Summary, recommended works and sign-off

The summary is one paragraph: the building's overall condition, the two or three things that matter most, and what can wait. The recommended works table repeats every costed item in priority order with the total. The disclaimer records the limitations in a few sentences. An acceptance page gives the client a place to sign that they have received the report and, where you want it, that they instruct the priority works; the inspector signs too. The back page carries your contact details and the registrations you hold.

A finished sample

The structure above is easier to see than to read about. Our sample building inspection report is a twelve-page report on a fictional Edinburgh property with five areas inside and out, the schedule of condition, the grading key, costed works and the acceptance page. Hold it next to your own template and see where the two differ.

Faults that make a report hard to act on

The same problems recur. No grading key, so the client cannot rank the work. Photographs grouped at the back with no captions. Services described as if they had been tested. A long narrative with no schedule, so the committee has to read all thirty pages to find the total. Grades applied to whole elevations that mix a sound wall with a failing parapet. And no statement of what was excluded, which is the first thing anyone asks about when a problem appears in a part of the building the report does not mention.

Each of these is a template problem. Fix the template and the next twenty reports are better.

Frequently asked questions

Is a building inspection report the same as a building survey?

Not quite. A building survey (a RICS Level 3 Home Survey) is a product for a buyer, carried out by a chartered surveyor under RICS terms. A building inspection or condition report is produced for an owner or manager who already holds the property and needs to plan and cost maintenance. The structure is similar; the readers and the purpose differ.

How many grades should the template have?

Three unless a client requires otherwise. Three is what owners recognise and what fits on a badge. Five is the sensible maximum; beyond that, inspectors disagree with each other about which grade a defect belongs in and the scale stops meaning anything.

Should internal rooms be included?

Only if instructed, and say so in the scope. Many condition reports for landlords and block managers cover the external fabric, roof, grounds and common parts and leave the inside of flats alone. When rooms are included, treat each room or each defect as an area with the same fields.

What should the report say about electrics, gas and heating?

That they were noted where visible but not tested, and that inspection and testing by a qualified electrician or Gas Safe registered engineer is recommended where the client wants assurance. Never grade a service you have not tested.

Can a roofing contractor write a building inspection report?

Yes, for the parts of the building they are competent to assess, and many are asked to. Say in the scope what you looked at and in what capacity. A roofer's report on the roof, chimneys, rainwater goods and the parapets is a building report in all but name; add the elevations and grounds only if you are confident describing them.

What to do next

Take the structure above and compare it with the last report you sent. If the schedule of condition, the grading key or the scope statement is missing, add it to your template before the next job. Docutrades produces this report on site: areas added as you walk the building, three categories or your own, a schedule of condition with a total, and a signed PDF; the building inspection report software page shows the flow, and the free trial needs no card.