Home survey standard

RICS develops and enforces leading international standards to protect consumers and businesses, ensuring the highest level of professionalism is employed across the built and natural environment.

As a Royal Charter, we are required to act in the public interest. Our standards documents lay out the ethical, conduct and competence expected for members of RICS. By working to our standards, professional members and RICS regulated firms deliver confidence. RICS ensures these standards are upheld by the profession through a system of independently led regulation.

We regularly review RICS standards to ensure they meet changing national and international market needs, as has been the case with the residential market since the 1^st edition was implemented. It is vital we ensure our professional standards respond to these needs and maintain credibility. The public consultation, which enables us to consider all stakeholder views, on the updated Home survey standard aims to ensure the standard reflects these changes in the market and maintains its authority as the best practice in home surveys for today and in the coming years.

The public consultation on the home survey regulatory scheme proposal follows initial support shown for a regulatory scheme in a 2024 survey. One of the questions in the survey asked ‘Should RICS consider a standards scheme (similar to the Valuer Registration Scheme) for residential surveyors?’ – 45.6% of respondents said ‘Yes’, 35.23% said ‘No’, and 19.17% said ‘I’m not sure’.

Since members were more likely to support the scheme than not, we are exploring its feasibility in more detail, relying upon feedback from members to inform our next steps.

Please note that although these consultations are running at the same time and concern home surveys, they are fundamentally separate from each other. Insights shared on the regulatory scheme will not impact on the standard, and vice versa.

Yes, they are public consultations, and we encourage individuals and organisations involved in the sale or purchase of a property to share their observations and comments. We do request that responses are relevant to the proposed 2^nd edition of the Home survey standard and to the proposal of a regulatory scheme. All responses will be considered.

We are holding a free-to-all webinar outlining the standard’s changes. The webinar will take place on Friday 26^th September 2025, 10:00 – 11:00am. If you still have questions following the webinar, you can email knowledge@rics.org and an RICS staff member will get back to you.

The consultations will provide valuable further insight and information from members and other stakeholders, which will help shape the updated Home survey standard, as well as better understand the need for a Home survey regulatory scheme. 

Once the consultations have completed on 30 September 2025, the next steps for the 2^nd edition of the Home survey standard are:

1)      The Expert Group and RICS will review all consultation feedback.

2)      Updates as agreed by the Expert Group and RICS will be made to the standard.

3)      The final standard to be approved through the RICS governance process, including review by the Knowledge and Practice Committee (KPC), the Standards and Regulation Board (SRB), and their delegated authorities.

4)      The standard will be published.

For the regulatory scheme, we will review the responses and provide a report on the consultation to the Standards and Regulation Board. We expect a further update to be available for members in the first quarter of 2026.

All RICS members and regulated firms must ensure they follow the Rules of Conduct wherever they work or practice. The five rules provide a structure for making ethical decisions about how to behave as a professional. Members must use their professional judgement in applying these principles to the situations they face in practice and firms must support individuals working for them to do so and to conduct themselves to the high standards expected by RICS members and firms.

The proposal on the regulatory scheme, explains how we currently regulate home surveys and sets out options for ways that we could change this. We are seeking views on this from members and the public through the consultation.

The consultations will run from 19 August until 30 September 2025.

The purpose of the Home survey standard is to:

• Establish a clear framework that sets minimum expectations to protect and maintain consistent and high-quality standards in residential property survey services that RICS members and regulated firms provide.
• Provide mandatory requirements for RICS members and regulated firms in the UK who conduct residential property surveys.

The standard and its RICS template reports offer benefits including:

• The ability to highlight your findings in a way that is easily understood by your clients with the traffic light condition ratings system.
• Offering a clear report structure.
• Providing an impartial property assessment by RICS, updated to adhere to the Home survey standard and ensures that it maintains the benchmark for best practice.

No, this standard only applies to UK-based RICS members, firms and candidates.

The consultation proposes the following changes:

• Updated information and guidance on legislation and regulatory requirements for undertaking a home survey, ensuring members provide the highest level of service for today’s housing market.
• Expanding valuations so that VRS-regulated surveyors can undertake valuations across all levels, from Home Survey Level 1 to Level 3 and greater clarity on the requirements needed for each level.
• Reflect the advancements within professional practice by cross-referencing technological advancements, particularly AI, and offer guidance on cost advice, alterations, insurance reinstatement, drone inspections and new build inspections.
• Guidance for ‘additional risk’ dwellings, including a framework and guidance on historic buildings, new-build snagging and retrofit homes.
• Updated appendices with more benchmarking of the levels of reporting and inspection, better supporting RICS members in their practice.

The changes that will appear in the 2^nd edition of the Home survey standard will be dependent on the responses received in consultation.

The supporting material and forms will be reviewed to align with the new standard post-consultation. 

Yes, our Home Surveys in Practice - 3 Part Series (a 3-part web class) will be updated after the standard has published.

Yes, there is an Author, an Expert Group and a Chair of the Expert Group. The Expert Group comprises of surveyors (from Associate to Fellow) and independent stakeholders. Each member of the Expert Group will contribute towards the standard, working as a collective and also specific sections individually. Please visit the Expert Group section of the Home Survey Standard webpage to learn more about the members and what they work on specifically in the standard.

This consultation is asking members, regulated firms and other stakeholders, such as lenders, technical partners, legal firms and conveyancers, governmental and educational stakeholders, whether they support the idea of a regulatory scheme in principle. If there is positive consensus, we will develop the proposal further, along with an implementation plan.

SRB will consider all the feedback received and we expect a further update to be available for members in the first quarter of 2026.

The consultation considers the costs and benefits of a scheme and asks for views on both.  There would need to be a fee for any scheme, just as there is a fee for the Valuers Registration Scheme.  If SRB decided to proceed with a scheme then there would be a further consultation on the precise nature and level of any fees, plus the detail of what RICS would propose to do in terms of regulatory activity.  This would involve some auditing of members carrying out surveys – the current consultation asks for views on what this should consist of and we will consider feedback carefully and take account of it if the scheme does go ahead.