Safe Homes Start with Service Certification: Rethinking the Home Survey Standard

One of the most contentious areas in the draft Home Survey Standard (HSS) is how surveyors should deal with services - the electrics, gas, water, heating, and ventilation that make a home liveable.

The draft says that if there are no certificates, the surveyor must call for further reports. It also uses words like “check” and “test,” which sound clear at first glance but, in practice, mean very different things to different people. And that’s where the problems begin.

Confusion for surveyors, confusion for consumers

Right now, even within the profession, there is no shared understanding. Some surveyors believe “check” means turning on taps, hobs, lights, and fans. Others insist this strays into “testing,” which should be left to qualified specialists. Socket testers, flow meters, and similar tools are especially divisive - some see them as helpful indicators, others as liability traps.

If trained surveyors can’t agree on what “check” means, how can we expect consumers to know what they are - or are not - getting? A buyer who reads “the services were checked” may reasonably assume their sockets are safe, their boiler reliable, and their ventilation effective. But that isn’t what the surveyor has done. That gap between expectation and reality is exactly what fuels complaints and erodes trust.

Where are the service specialists?

Another glaring issue is that the consultation appears to have been drafted with little input from service industry providers. Electricians, plumbers, heating engineers, and ventilation specialists are the ones qualified - and insured - to test these systems. Without their voices in the process, the HSS risks blurring professional boundaries and leaving surveyors exposed to risks they are neither trained nor equipped to manage.

If the goal is consumer protection, then alignment with the existing competent person schemes (such as NICEIC and NAPIT for electrics, Gas Safe for heating, etc.) is essential. Otherwise, surveyors are left trying to interpret standards that overlap but don’t align with how services are actually regulated.

Why not require certification upfront?

The simple answer is staring us in the face: if valid certificates for services were required at the point of marketing, most of this problem would disappear.

• Buyers would see reliable, specialist evidence of the state of the electrics, gas, and heating systems.
  
• Surveyors could provide meaningful commentary without resorting to repetitive caveats.
  
• Sellers wouldn’t have to upgrade; just be honest about what exists.
  
• And crucially, it would bring the sale of homes in line with the rental sector, where EICRs and gas safety checks are already mandatory.
  

Whether you rent or buy, one principle should apply: everyone deserves a safe home.

A chance to be bold

RICS had the chance to set a higher bar here — one that recognised the limits of surveyors’ expertise, respected the role of service specialists, and demanded honesty upfront. Instead, we have a standard that risks confusing consumers and frustrating professionals.

The solution is not to make surveyors part-time electricians or plumbers. The solution is to:

• Consult properly with the service industries.
  
• Clarify “check” vs “test” in plain English, with worked examples.
  
• Require upfront certification at marketing, so buyers see the truth and surveyors can report with confidence.
  
  

Anything less is, frankly, a missed opportunity.

Enjoy this article? You might also like Why Surveying Needs a Fairer, Clearer, Consumer Complaint Process

Find this content useful? I’d love to hear your suggestions and recommendations. If you found this article helpful, please share it and show your support by leaving me a Google review — or you can Buy Me a Coffee. As a small business, it makes all the difference.

Next step for you: If you’re a surveyor or small surveying firm looking to strengthen your client onboarding, complaint handling, and consumer-focused services, take a look at my Love Surveying Workshops and Resources. They’re designed to help you reduce complaints, build trust, and deliver surveys that consumers actually value.