What must a RICS Home Survey Level 2 report include?
Level 2 sits between the brief condition report and the full building survey, and it is the level most residential surveyors write most often. It is also the level where the scope is most frequently misunderstood — by clients who expect a Level 3 investigation, and occasionally by surveyors who drift beyond what they agreed to provide.
This is a practical summary of what a Level 2 report needs to contain and where the disputes tend to arise. It is not a substitute for the RICS Home Survey Standard itself, which you should be working from directly.
What Level 2 is actually for
A Level 2 survey is intended for conventional properties in reasonable condition. The inspection is non-invasive: you inspect what is readily accessible and visible, without lifting fitted carpets, moving heavy furniture, or opening up the structure.
That constraint is the single most important thing to make explicit in the report. Most complaints against Level 2 reports are not about a defect the surveyor got wrong — they are about a defect the client believed was in scope when it was not.
The sections a Level 2 report needs
The structure varies between firms, but the substance a report has to cover is consistent:
Terms of engagement and scope — what was instructed, what the survey does and does not cover, and the basis on which you are reporting.
Property description — type, approximate age, construction, accommodation and orientation.
Condition ratings against each element — applied consistently and explained in plain language.
Risks — to the building, to the grounds, and to people, including anything affecting the decision to buy.
Legal matters for the conveyancer — items you have observed that need legal enquiry, such as apparent alterations, rights of way or shared services.
Limitations and assumptions — what you could not inspect, and why.
Further investigations — what you recommend, from whom, and crucially before or after exchange.
Condition ratings are where consistency matters most
The rating system is deliberately simple: broadly, elements with no repair currently needed, elements with defects that need repair or replacement but are not serious or urgent, and elements with defects that are serious or need urgent attention. Anything you could not inspect should be flagged as such rather than quietly omitted.
The failure mode is not usually picking the wrong rating — it is applying ratings inconsistently across the report, or awarding a rating whose narrative does not support it. If an element is rated as needing urgent attention, the accompanying text has to explain why in terms a non-surveyor can follow.
A condition rating without a supporting narrative is the single most common thing clients come back and query.
Writing the narrative so it holds up
For each element, a defensible entry does three things: it records what you observed, it explains what that observation means, and it states what should happen next. Observation, implication, action. Reports that get into difficulty usually collapse these together, or state a conclusion without the observation that supports it.
Keep the observation factual and specific. "Staining to the ceiling below the bathroom, approximately 300mm across, damp to the touch at the time of inspection" is defensible. "Evidence of a leak" is a conclusion dressed up as an observation.
Limitations are not boilerplate
Generic limitations wording protects you far less than most people assume. What protects you is a specific note at the point it matters: that the roof void could not be accessed because the hatch was sealed, that the rear elevation was obscured by dense vegetation, that fitted floor coverings prevented inspection of the ground floor structure.
Site-specific limitations, recorded against the element they affect, are worth more than a page of standard exclusions at the back.
Before you issue
A short pre-issue check catches most of what comes back later:
Does every condition rating have a narrative that justifies it?
Does every recommendation for further investigation say who should carry it out and whether it should happen before exchange?
Are the limitations specific to this property rather than generic?
Have you separated observation from opinion throughout?
Would a client with no construction knowledge understand the three most important points in the report?
The last one is the one most often skipped, and the one clients judge you on.