"Surveyor" is a job title shared by several professions that have almost nothing to do with each other. If you are buying a house, the one you need is a residential building surveyor — the profession that inspects a property's condition and reports on its defects. Land surveyors, quantity surveyors, party wall surveyors and asbestos surveyors are all doing something different, and none is a substitute for the others.
This causes more confusion than it should, and occasionally costs people money — a buyer who commissions a measured building survey because it sounded thorough ends up with a beautiful set of floor plans and no idea whether the roof is sound.
The one you need when buying a home
A residential building surveyor inspects a property you are buying or own, and reports on its construction, condition and defects. This is the profession behind Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 home surveys, new-build snagging inspections and property defect investigations.
If you are buying a house and want to know what is wrong with it and what it will cost to put right, this is who you are looking for. Our guide to the difference between survey levels covers which one to instruct.
The ones you probably don't
Land surveyor (also geomatics or topographical surveyor). Measures and maps land — levels, boundaries, contours, topographical plans. Used by developers, architects and civil engineers. Produces a plan of the ground, not an assessment of a building.
Measured building surveyor. Produces accurate dimensioned drawings of an existing building: floor plans, elevations, sections. Commissioned when someone is designing alterations and needs to know exactly what is there. It records geometry, not condition — it is entirely silent on whether anything is defective.
Quantity surveyor. Prices and manages construction costs, usually on a project of some size. Involved when work is being procured, not when a property is being bought.
Party wall surveyor. Handles the statutory process where building work affects a shared wall or boundary — serving notices and, where owners disagree, producing an award. Triggered by proposed works, not by a purchase.
Asbestos surveyor. Carries out management or refurbishment/demolition surveys under the asbestos regulations, with sampling and laboratory analysis. A building survey will flag materials that may contain asbestos as a matter of course; confirming what they are is a separate, specialist instruction.
Valuation surveyor. Assesses what a property is worth. This is what a mortgage lender arranges for its own purposes, and it is not a condition survey — see mortgage valuation vs survey.
And the one that isn't a surveyor at all
A structural engineer is a different profession again. Engineers do the calculations and design the remedies: sizing a beam, designing underpinning, confirming whether a wall is load-bearing and what replaces it if it goes.
The order matters. A survey tells you whether there is a structural problem, where it is, and how it is behaving. An engineer designs the solution to a problem that has already been identified. Commissioning an engineer first is often paying for a narrow answer to a question nobody has framed yet — and frequently the survey concludes that the cracking which prompted the call is not progressive at all. Our post on building surveyor vs structural engineer goes further into where the line sits.
A quick way to choose
| What you want to know | Who you need |
|---|---|
| What condition is this house in, and what will it cost me? | Residential building surveyor |
| Exactly how big is it, in drawings? | Measured building surveyor |
| Where is the boundary, and what are the levels? | Land surveyor |
| What is this property worth? | Valuation surveyor |
| Is this material asbestos? | Asbestos surveyor |
| My work affects next door's wall | Party wall surveyor |
| What will this construction project cost to build? | Quantity surveyor |
| How do I fix this specific structural defect? | Structural engineer |
What we do, and what we don't
We are an independent, RPSA-certified residential building surveying practice: home surveys at all three levels, pre-completion snagging inspections and property defect investigations, across Greater Manchester and Cheshire.
We do not carry out land or measured building surveys, asbestos surveys, party wall matters or quantity surveying. Those are separate disciplines with their own qualifications, and being honest about the boundary is more useful than taking the instruction. If what you need is outside our scope, we will say so.
If you are not sure which of the above applies to your situation, describe it to us — it usually takes one conversation to work out, and there is no charge for pointing you in the right direction.