The survey that goes where the light doesn't.

The RICS Home Survey Level 3 — commonly called a Building Survey — is the most thorough RICS survey: a full structural narrative on the property's construction, materials and condition, with technical recommendations, repair priorities and an in-depth legal-adviser briefing. It's aimed at older, listed, altered, larger or unusual properties where a Level 2 isn't enough.

Section M is the plain-English recommendations section — a prioritised list of actions the client should take after reading the report. Unlike the element-by-element narrative in Sections D–G, Section M is written for the client: what to repair and in what order, any specialist investigations to commission before exchange, and matters to raise with the solicitor. In the Level 3 editor, many surveyors draft Section M last, once the full picture from Sections D–K is clear — though you can complete it at any stage. It is included in the branded PDF immediately after the technical sections.

Section L is the formal surveyor declaration — the statement confirming that the report was prepared by a RICS-qualified surveyor following a personal inspection in accordance with the RICS Home Survey Standard. The Level 3 editor provides structured fields for the declaration: name, RICS membership number, qualifications, firm, address and inspection date. In Otto auto-mode, these fields are pre-filled from your Home.co.uk account profile. You review and confirm the completed declaration before exporting the final branded PDF.

Section K is a structured table of repair items split into short-term (within 12 months) and long-term (1–5 years) categories. Each item has a description and a cost range — minimum to maximum — which the editor auto-totals per category. This gives clients a financial summary alongside the condition narrative and is included in the final PDF.

Where market context is required, the comparable sales appendix shows sold and rental comparables within a 1-mile radius and a weighted valuation range — typically referenced in the recommendations section and included in Section O of the PDF.

Section H is the Issues for Legal Advisers section: H1 Regulations, H2 Guarantees, H3 Other matters. The auto-populator examines all D-G condition findings and synthesises legal-adviser notes (e.g. "Recommend solicitor confirm party-wall award for the rear extension noted at E5") — saving roughly 20–30 minutes of manual cross-referencing while keeping the body of the report and the legal-adviser brief consistent.

Yes. Once the UPRN is resolved, the property data layer supplies environmental risk data — flood risk (rivers and sea, surface water), radon, coal mining, landfill sites, Japanese knotweed and noise — which is used to pre-draft I1 (Risks to the building), I2 (Risks to the grounds) and I3 (Risks to people). The AI also draws on your D-G findings, so the risks section stays consistent with the condition narrative. You review and edit before sign-off.

Where an EPC certificate is registered for the property's UPRN, the editor pre-fills the Section J energy fields from the government EPC register — current rating, efficiency score, floor area, heating type and main fuel. All fields are editable: if the certificate is out of date or doesn't reflect what you found on inspection, update the fields to match your observations. Where no certificate exists, the fields are blank and you complete Section J from scratch based on your inspection.

Section C — construction type, services, garage, grounds and environment — is pre-populated from three sources: UPRN lookup data (address, postcode, property type, construction era), the estate agent listing description where available, and the results of the photo AI analysis (construction materials visible in site photos). The pre-populated text is a starting point, not a final draft. Review each field and update it to reflect what you found on inspection — non-standard construction in particular will typically need more technical detail than the pre-populated baseline provides.

No — and that is by design. The RICS Home Survey Standard requires a RICS-qualified surveyor to inspect the property, form professional judgements and sign off the report. The AI in the Level 3 editor is a drafting and cross-referencing tool: it populates Section H from your D–G condition findings, pre-drafts Section I from property data, and offers inline rewrites in your firm's voice. Every suggestion requires your explicit acceptance before it enters the report. Your professional judgement and sign-off remain the final act — which is both the RICS requirement and your PI protection.

If you update a D–G condition rating or narrative after Section H has been auto-populated, the H fields do not update automatically — you would need to re-trigger the auto-population or edit H manually. This is intentional: Section H is a legal-adviser brief and should reflect the final, reviewed condition findings rather than live-updating mid-draft. The RICS Standards Check will prompt you to review Section H if it detects significant condition changes since the last synthesis.

Yes. The AI Dictation tool works for both Level 2 and Level 3. On site, speak your observations element by element — "D1 chimney stacks, pointing eroded on the east stack, condition 3, recommend repointing" — and voice transcription routes each sentence to the correct RICS field in the Level 3 editor. You return to the desk with a populated first draft rather than a blank page. Otto auto-mode takes this further, running the full pipeline including Section H synthesis from your dictation alone.

Yes. Every D–G element field accepts free-text observations of unlimited length, so you can describe Flemish-bond brickwork, lime-mortar pointing, hand-made clay tiles, or timber-frame construction in as much technical detail as the property demands. For listed buildings, add conservation-area or listed-building consent constraints directly to Section H1 (Regulations). The standard RICS element codes (D1–G3) still structure the report; the narrative within each field is entirely yours.

Yes. Level 3 surveys of complex or large properties sometimes require more than one visit — to inspect areas that were inaccessible on the first visit, or to return after a specialist has cleared an access route. The Level 3 report is saved to your Home.co.uk surveyor account at every step, so you can open it, record additional observations from the follow-up visit, and continue without losing earlier work. Between visits, the RICS Standards Check shows which sections are complete and which are outstanding — giving you a clear agenda for the return visit before you arrive on site.

Yes. Reports are saved to your Home.co.uk surveyor account and accessible to any authorised team member at your firm. A colleague can open the same report to QA specific sections, run the RICS Standards Check, or complete outstanding elements before the lead surveyor signs off and exports the PDF. Section A pre-fills from the signing surveyor's profile, not the person who last accessed the report.

Yes. For any element where a non-invasive inspection raises a concern but the full extent or cause cannot be determined without further access or testing, record the specialist investigation recommendation alongside your condition observation in the relevant D–G field — for example, noting that a structural engineer should assess the rear extension at D4 before exchange. The Section H auto-populator reads these recommendations and drafts the appropriate H1 Regulations note so the solicitor is made aware. Section M (Recommendations) then consolidates all specialist investigation items in plain English, giving the client a clear action list.

Yes. Otto supports both Level 2 and Level 3. For Level 3, Otto additionally fires the Section H and Section I auto-populators and respects your firm's custom rating scale, producing a fully-routed draft from your on-site dictation and photos.

The editor is designed around the principle that the AI drafts, you decide. Every AI suggestion — whether an inline rewrite, an auto-populated Section H note, or a pre-drafted Section I risk — requires your explicit acceptance before it enters the report. The AI has no authority to publish or sign off; you remain the professional of record. Most PI insurers focus on whether the report was inspected, prepared and signed off by a qualified RICS surveyor — conditions the tool is designed to support. That said, your specific policy wording governs, so check with your insurer if you are uncertain. If a complaint arises, the audit trail (who accepted each suggestion, which fields were auto-populated and then edited) is available in your account history.

Skipped sections are dropped from the dynamic table of contents automatically — no orphan entries pointing nowhere. The RICS Standards Check will flag any section required under the RICS Home Survey Standard that hasn't been completed, so you can add content or mark it not applicable before sign-off.

A Word template is a blank document — you fill every section manually, cross-reference Section H by hand, build the cost schedule in a spreadsheet, and rebuild the table of contents each time. The Level 3 editor provides structured fields for every RICS section (A–O), auto-populates Section H from your D-G findings, auto-drafts Section I from property environmental data, maintains a live remedial cost schedule in Section K, regenerates the table of contents as you write, and exports a fully formatted branded PDF in one click.

For Level 3, the structural advantages are significant. Section H is populated from your D–G condition findings — eliminating manual cross-referencing across twelve or more element fields. Section K repair cost totals update automatically as you add items. The table of contents regenerates as you write and removes sections you have not completed — no orphan entries to tidy manually. The RICS Standards Check replaces a manual read-through against the RICS Home Survey Standard before sign-off. Because the report is stored in your surveyor account, you can share it securely by link, access it between site visits, and export a branded PDF in one click. For practices doing more than a handful of Level 3s per month, the time saving per report consistently exceeds two hours — which compounds quickly across the team.

Reports are stored in your Home.co.uk surveyor account under your firm. You can export PDF or HTML at any time, archive completed reports, and revoke share-link access. Audio dictations are held in secure cloud storage against your account.