Choose the report for the Greenwich decision
Choose according to construction, alterations, condition and the purpose of your instruction.
- RICS Level 2 Home Survey — a conventional home in reasonable condition, without significant complexity.
- RICS Level 3 Building Survey — an older, altered, unusual or complex home needing a fuller investigation of condition.
- Specific defect investigation — a defined concern such as damp, cracking or water ingress.
- Pre-acquisition commercial building survey — condition and technical risk for a commercial purchase or lease.
Send the address, plans and your concerns so the proposed service, inspection limits and fee can be confirmed before instruction.
West Greenwich evidence: shopfronts, villas and hillside terraces
The council’s 2013 West Greenwich appraisal describes Greenwich South Street’s Georgian houses with later projecting shopfronts and pairs of early nineteenth-century villas backing toward the railway. Its Crooms Hill and Hyde Vale accounts separately describe terraces, townhouses and villas climbing the escarpment. These are character-area examples, rather than a single form for every Greenwich home.
Use the exact street and building plan to place the purchased accommodation in its setting. Establish its entrance, levels and additions from current records. The historical appraisal does not determine present residential use or the condition of an individual house.
Greenwich building stock and property types
Greenwich SE10’s housing is exceptionally old, layered and heavily controlled. Survey suitability depends on the home.
A piecemeal run of 17th- to early-19th-century houses along Croom’s Hill, many Grade II listed, with The Grange at number 52 containing 12th-century timbers — the oldest domestic fabric on the street.
Michael Searles’ late-Georgian crescent, its southern range built about 1791–1809 and Grade II listed, with classic proportions, solid-wall masonry and joinery that reward careful inspection.
The Victorian estate around Greenwich station, a conservation area under an Article 4 Direction, with stock-brick terraces of roughly 1830–1870 and the movement and damp patterns typical of that stock.
Georgian and Victorian villas and terraces on the eastern side of Greenwich Park. Maze Hill’s park-edge frontage, with the extraordinary Vanbrugh Castle of about 1719, sits in the Greenwich Park Conservation Area, while the East Greenwich Conservation Area proper runs along Trafalgar Road and the Ballast Quay riverside — period homes often altered over the decades.
Conservation areas, listed buildings and alteration risk
Greenwich’s council register lists West Greenwich, East Greenwich, Greenwich Park and Ashburnham Triangle as separate conservation areas. Use its maps to establish whether the purchased address is within a boundary, and check the specific work and any applicable direction or listing with the council. The register does not establish present condition or permissions for an individual home.
For Greenwich roof, window and rear-room changes, put the drawings, project dates and relevant council decisions together. Have the solicitor examine title, lease, covenants and any freeholder documents alongside those public decisions; do not infer the absence of private restrictions from the area name.
For a Greenwich purchase, describe the building’s occupied depth and its floor levels along the street or hillside. A home above a projecting shopfront and a villa rising toward Hyde Vale have different layouts to explain. Provide the property’s drawings, entrance route and any records of later additions.
Show the accommodation beyond a projecting shopfront
Where a Greenwich dwelling sits behind or above a shop, ask for a plan connecting the residential doorway to all bought rooms. Draw the projecting frontage separately from the older building behind. Identify any yard, return wing or internal passage between them.
Request the drawings for changed openings in the shop or rear wall, with their dates and the supported floors marked. List business premises that would need an additional access arrangement. A photograph of the frontage may leave the residential route and rear roof connections outside the view offered to the buyer.
Draw the hillside plot through its changes of level
For a Hyde Vale or Crooms Hill enquiry, a section can locate the pavement, entrance, lower rooms and garden terraces together. Mark which boundary or retaining structures form part of the proposed instruction. Relate any seller’s account of damp or movement to that particular wall and outside level.
Collect the available drawings for excavation, waterproofing or an enlarged lower room by project date. Identify the components those works covered and any adjoining space that remains inaccessible. The hill setting supplies context; the property’s evidence should establish the question to be investigated.
Read alteration papers against the actual Greenwich address
If a seller describes a period home as restored, ask for the work schedule and drawings that distinguish roof treatment, window replacement and structural changes. Put each project beside its council decision, where applicable, rather than treating restoration as one permission covering all work.
Supply the title, lease and any freeholder or covenant documents to the solicitor as separate evidence. A conservation-area map cannot establish the absence of private restrictions. Identify missing papers explicitly so the purchase enquiry separates physical inspection questions from the legal status of an alteration.
Greenwich building survey questions
Does the West Greenwich appraisal describe every SE10 house?
Its examples concern particular character areas and streets. Identify the current building arrangement and use from address-specific plans and records.
What helps explain a home behind a Greenwich shopfront?
Connect the residential door, purchased rooms and rear structures on one drawing. Date changed commercial openings and identify which premises could be made accessible.
Which drawing is useful for a Crooms Hill lower-room purchase?
Show street, entrance and garden levels in section, with retaining walls and the affected rooms located. Relate earlier excavation or moisture investigations to those components.
Does conservation status settle private alteration restrictions?
Give the solicitor the title, lease, covenants and any freeholder documents alongside council decisions. Neither the map nor the survey enquiry establishes that no private restriction exists.
Greenwich Building Survey Quote & Fee Estimator (From £550 plus VAT)
Content updated: October 2026.
Other Greenwich surveying services
Need a RICS survey quote in Greenwich? We confirm a fixed fee after scoping. Call 020 7101 4590, email enquiries@hampsteadcharteredsurveyors.co.uk, or inspect our redacted RICS Level 3 sample reports. Sample reports.