How to get a home survey from quote request to booked inspection

A home survey gets from quote request to booked inspection in six steps: reply to the enquiry, learn enough about the property to price it, make sure the buyer understands the levels of survey, send the fee, get the terms of engagement back, and agree access with whoever holds the keys. Two of those steps, the level and the fee, need a surveyor. The other four are written exchanges that wait in an inbox until a coordinator is free, and the waiting is where instructions are lost.

Where an instruction starts

A buyer has had an offer accepted and wants a survey before they commit. The request reaches you from your website, from an estate agent or a broker, or from a comparison site. On reallymoving the buyer sees instant quotes from up to five RICS-regulated firms, so your price arrives alongside as many as four others, and what separates you is what happens next. In Scotland the seller's Home Report changes the order of all this; the steps below describe a buyer's instruction elsewhere in the UK.

The steps, and who does each today

1. Reply. A survey administrator or coordinator answers when they are next at the inbox. An enquiry sent on Saturday evening is answered on Monday.

2. Learn the property. You cannot price a survey from an address alone. You need the property's age, type, size and construction, whether it has been extended, whether it is leasehold, what the buyer means to do with it and what worries them. Today this is a call, or several emails each asking one question.

3. Settle the level of service. The RICS Home Survey Standard requires the firm to take all reasonable steps to see that the client understands how the levels differ, and says clients will need advice on which suits them. It describes level one as better suited to conventionally built, modern homes in satisfactory condition. A surveyor has this conversation, and a surveyor declines the instruction if the property is beyond their knowledge.

4. Send the fee. From the practice's fee scale, adjusted by a surveyor for anything unusual. The Standard requires the firm to take all reasonable steps to see that the client knows the fee.

5. Get the terms back. The Standard says terms of engagement should be issued and returned before the inspection. That step has a guide of its own.

6. Agree access and confirm. The coordinator asks the selling agent or the vendor for a time, fits it to the surveyor's route, and tells the buyer the inspection date and when to expect the report, both of which the terms should state.

Where are instructions lost between quote and booking?

An instruction is usually lost between the first step and the second, or between the fourth and the fifth. A buyer with other quotes in hand does not wait two days to be asked how old the house is. A buyer who has accepted a fee and hears nothing about terms or a date starts to wonder whether the survey will be done before their solicitor needs it. Neither loss shows unless somebody counts the enquiries that never became jobs.

Which steps an AI worker can take on

The four written steps can be held by an AI worker, with a written job, a named person it answers to and measures you agree. It can reply to each quote request as it arrives, in your wording, and ask every question a surveyor needs answered in one message. It can send your approved description of each level of service, so the buyer has read it before the surveyor speaks to them. It can draft the fee quote from your fee scale and the property details, for a surveyor to check. And it can email the agent or vendor for access, offer times that fit the surveyor's diary, confirm the date to the buyer and record it against the job.

If your practice runs on survey software, much of the sending is already built in; what such software leaves is the replies, the exceptions and the follow-up. An agent works in it through the route its maker publishes, confirmed with you at the start. The full set of roles is on our page for surveyors.

What waits for a person, and why

Advice on which level a buyer needs is the surveyor's, because the Standard puts that duty on the firm and the answer depends on the building. The fee for anything outside your scale is the surveyor's. So is the decision to decline. Every phone call stays with your coordinator: the agent writes, and when a selling agent has not answered two emails it tells the coordinator, who rings. Changes on the day of the inspection are a person's as well.

What to have ready before you start

• The questions that let a surveyor price a property, in one list.

• Your description of each level of service, as it appears on your website and in your terms.

• Your fee scale, and the property types a surveyor must always look at before a fee goes out.

• The first reply, and the reminders, in the wording you want a buyer to read.

• Each surveyor's working area and days.

• The point at which an unanswered access request goes to the coordinator for a call.

Sending all the questions in one message, and counting the enquiries that never became instructions, would improve this job next week with nobody new in the office. Why these steps set the limit on how many instructions a coordinator can carry is in how to scale a surveying practice without hiring.

The worker would answer every quote request and follow it through to a confirmed inspection date, and your surveyors would advise on the level and your coordinator would take the phone calls. Talk to our agent, starting with any quote requests going cold in the inbox.