What goes in a building inspection report (UK)

A building inspection report records the condition of a property on the day it was inspected: what is sound, what is wearing out, what needs attention now, and roughly what it will cost. Owners commission them before buying or selling, landlords and block managers to plan maintenance, insurers after a claim. This guide walks through the pages a good report contains, in the order you will usually meet them, with example wording, so you can tell a useful report from a thin one. If you write reports rather than read them, the companion guide on building inspection report contents covers the same ground from the surveyor’s side.

The cover and the inspection details

The cover names the property, the client and the firm. The page after it should give the facts of the visit: the date, the weather, who inspected and how they got access. Weather is not small talk. A roof inspected after three dry weeks may not show a leak that appears in the first storm, and a careful surveyor says so. If the date or weather is missing, ask.

Scope and limitations

Every honest report says what was not looked at. Expect a plain statement that the inspection was visual and non-intrusive: furniture not moved, floor coverings not lifted, services not tested, and the roof viewed from the ground, a ladder, a drone or the roof itself. Then the specific gaps: “the rear flat roof could not be accessed safely and was viewed from the bedroom window”, “no access to the loft was available”.

This section protects both sides. It tells you where uncertainty remains, and it is usually where a recommendation for a further, specialist inspection comes from.

How defects are graded

Before any findings, a good report explains its grading. Many UK reports use three repair categories:

Category 1: no immediate action or repair is needed.
Category 2: repairs or replacement requiring future attention; estimates are advised.
Category 3: urgent repairs or replacement are needed now; failure to deal with them may cause problems elsewhere in the property or a safety hazard.

RICS Home Surveys use a similar three-step condition rating, with “NI” for elements not inspected, and some firms use four or five grades of their own. The scheme matters less than consistency: one grade per area, defined on a page near the front, and applied the same way throughout. Our guide to Cat 1, 2 and 3 has worked examples of borderline cases.

The schedule of condition

One table, one line per area, with its grade and an indicative cost, and a total at the bottom. This is the page most readers turn to first and the one a block manager will copy into a maintenance plan. A useful schedule lets you see at a glance that, say, the chimney stacks are Category 3 at £2,200 to £2,600 while the internal ceilings are Category 1 and need nothing.

The area pages

The body of the report is a section for each part of the building. A whole-building inspection usually runs from the outside in:

External: roof coverings, chimneys, flashings, rainwater goods, walls and pointing, render, windows and doors, external decorations.
Grounds: paths, hardstanding and car parks, boundary walls, fences, drainage covers where visible.
Internal: ceilings, walls, floors, stairs, joinery, signs of damp or movement, and communal areas in a block.
Services: what was seen, not tested, with a recommendation for a Gas Safe engineer or an electrical condition report where appropriate.

Each area should carry the same four things. An example:

“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. The cast-iron downpipe leaks at a joint, with a damp stain to the inner face of the wall in bedroom 2 consistent with the leak.”

That is the description: material named, extent measured, cause stated only where the evidence supports it (“consistent with”, not “caused by”). Then the recommendation, written like a scope of work: “Rake out and repoint below the sills in lime mortar, removing the cement repairs. Replace the leaking downpipe section.” Then the grade and indicative cost, and up to five photos with captions saying what and where.

Watch for photos without captions, defects without a recommendation, and recommendations without a sense of urgency. Each one leaves you guessing.

Costs and what they mean

Indicative costs are ranges, given so you can budget and compare quotations, not a quotation themselves. A good report says that clearly, and says what the figures include and exclude. If a report gives no costs at all, it is still useful, but expect to commission quotes before you can plan.

Summary and recommended works

A paragraph that describes the building as a whole, for the reader who reads nothing else, followed by the recommended works in order of priority. Category 3 items first. If the summary and the schedule disagree, ask which is right.

Disclaimer, acceptance and the back page

The disclaimer restates that the report is an opinion from a visual inspection on the day. Many firms add an acceptance page where the client signs to acknowledge the findings and, where costs are shown, to instruct the work subject to a written quotation. The back page gives the firm’s contact details and any trade registrations.

Questions to ask about any report you receive

Does it say when it was inspected, in what weather, and what was not inspected?
Is the grading defined, and does every area have exactly one grade?
Can you find each defect on a captioned photo?
Does every defect have a recommendation and an urgency?
Are costs given as ranges, with what they include stated?
Does the summary match the schedule of condition?

For surveyors: producing one on site

Everything above can be written while you walk the building. Docutrades building inspection report software takes notes and photos area by area on a phone, rewrites the notes in a surveyor’s wording, and produces the branded report with the schedule of condition, area pages and an acceptance page the client signs on their phone. The twelve-page sample shows every section described here.

Written and edited by the Docutrades team. The example wording and figures are illustrative. Published 21 October 2026.