Why we built a survey tool inside a property portal

The most common question we get from chartered surveyors who find Home for the first time is some version of: why is a portal doing this?

It is a fair question. Portals list properties. Surveyors write reports. Those feel like different businesses. Here is the thinking behind why we do both.

The gap we kept seeing

When someone buys a home, they search the portal, find the property, make an offer, instruct a solicitor, and book a survey. Each step happens on a different platform, with different logins, different companies, and different sets of paperwork. The surveyor sits in the middle of that chain: they receive a booking, inspect the property, and send back a report the buyer uses to make one of the biggest financial decisions of their life.

The surveyor's tooling had not kept pace with the rest of the transaction. Most firms were still using word processors, email and spreadsheets. Report writing ate hours that could have gone into inspections. AML compliance added paperwork on top. We heard the same complaint from surveyor after surveyor: the work was manual in ways that no longer made sense in 2026.

The opportunity

If Home already had the property, the buyer and the booking, the surveyor did not have to sit outside that chain. We could bring the surveyor's workflow into the platform: the job, the report, the photos, the client communication, the compliance checks. One place rather than four.

That is what we built. Home for Surveyors includes an AI-assisted report writer called Otto, photo management, AML and ID checks, a client portal, and billing. It is built for RICS Level 2 and Level 3 survey work specifically, not adapted from generic document software. If you are weighing up which report to commission or which level of report to write, our guide to RICS Level 2 versus Level 3 covers the difference.

Why it benefits buyers too

A surveyor using tooling that fits the job can turn reports around faster, take on more work, and put the time saved into the quality of the inspection rather than the administration of the report.

Buyers benefit from that, even if they never see the tools the surveyor used. Home currently lists 1,249,531 live UK property listings, and every one of them that ends up under offer will need a surveyor at some point in the chain, whether it is a 3-bed house in Fringford, Oxfordshire or a 1-bed flat on Henry Street, Manchester. The faster and more accurate that step is, the fewer delays for everyone behind it.

Where we are now

There are over a thousand chartered surveyors using Home's tools today. Otto handles thousands of RICS drafts each month. We keep building based on what surveyors tell us is still too hard, and where AI helps versus where it does not, we have written up separately in our take on the future of RICS reporting.

If you are a chartered surveyor and you have not tried the tools, explore Home's surveyor dashboard and Otto, the RICS report writer. Both are free to get started.

Home is not a surveying firm and does not provide surveying advice. All reports are produced by, and the professional responsibility of, the chartered surveyor who signs them.

Further reading: RICS on home surveys.