Choose the report for the Woolwich 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.
Powis Street evidence: domestic rooms beside a former surgery
Greenwich’s March 2022 Woolwich appraisal describes 170–172 Powis Street as an 1898–99 purpose-built doctor’s house and surgery. Its account records red brick with stone dressings, a central doorway with balconied doors above, and a bay rising through two floors to a shaped parapet. The surgery and dispensing accommodation are described to the east. This is a documented historic building example, not an HCS appointment or a finding about its present use.
For an adapted Woolwich purchase, show which rooms and ranges now contain the home. Compare current plans with the building’s available earlier layout before treating its frontage as an explanation of everything behind it.
Woolwich building stock and property types
Woolwich’s stock runs from the Georgian and Victorian Royal Arsenal buildings, through Victorian and Edwardian town-centre and terraced housing, to older stock around the Common — solid-walled fabric a Level 3 survey is built for, alongside a great deal of new-build regeneration on the riverside.
The Georgian and Victorian former military buildings of the Royal Arsenal, many converted to apartments within the Royal Arsenal Riverside regeneration — historic fabric where past conversion, shared structure and services all need checking.
The late-Victorian commercial frontages of Powis Street, including the former Royal Arsenal Co-operative department stores, and the Victorian and Edwardian buildings around Beresford Square and Hare Street in the Woolwich conservation area.
The Victorian and Edwardian terraces on the slopes rising south to Woolwich Common and Shooters Hill, and older houses around the Common, often now subdivided.
Conservation areas, listed buildings and alteration risk
Woolwich has three Greenwich conservation areas: the Royal Arsenal Woolwich Conservation Area, covering the historic military buildings, the Woolwich Conservation Area protecting the Victorian and Edwardian town centre — Beresford Square, the Bathway Quarter, General Gordon Square, Powis Street and Hare Street — and the Woolwich Common Conservation Area around the open common. Being in a conservation area itself restricts some permitted development and requires consent for demolition and many works; none of the three Woolwich conservation areas carries a householder Article 4 direction, so ordinary permitted-development rights are not additionally withdrawn on that basis. For an adapted Woolwich home, distinguish the old room groups from later openings and entrances in the alteration chronology.
Check the particular Woolwich building and proposed work with Greenwich; private restrictions and responsibility require the solicitor’s examination.
For a Woolwich purchase in an adapted older building, identify the bought rooms and the parts originally used for another purpose. Put the entrance, current floor plan and project chronology together. A town-centre frontage may combine domestic accommodation, separate work spaces and later changes behind the same elevation.
Separate former work rooms from the residential layout
If a Woolwich dwelling occupies a building with earlier commercial or professional rooms, ask for the conversion plan showing their relationship to the home. Identify changed corridors, openings and stairs at their actual positions. Mark the entrance route independently from any neighbouring business access.
Request the project papers explaining a connection between the former room groups. Identify which occupier could open each intervening space during the proposed visit. The enquiry should distinguish the historical account of a building’s function from evidence about its present accommodation and agreed access.
Locate a bay and balcony within the bought elevation
Where the purchased Woolwich building has a projecting bay or balcony, connect that feature to the rooms and floors on the current section. Ask which component earlier work covered: outer masonry, support, covering or joinery. Keep each repair date with its own location.
If a parapet repair is offered as evidence of roof renewal, obtain the specification naming the covering and junctions included. Identify the external views available from the street or rear space. A decorative front treatment may leave the condition of concealed connections unanswered.
Keep a former professional building’s projects chronological
For a town-centre conversion, assemble earlier layouts, change-of-use papers where relevant and later room alterations in date order. Put each removed wall or enlarged opening on the drawing for its project. A single refurbishment label should be supplemented by the available component records.
Have the solicitor examine the permission and tenure documents alongside that chronology. State where the current plan differs from an earlier drawing or leaves a void unexplained. The technical question can then name the change or inaccessible part rather than infer its status from the historic description.
State whether the instruction concerns a home or the combined premises
The Powis Street example distinguishes domestic rooms from former professional accommodation. For a building with an altered or mixed-use history, establish what is occupied and being purchased now, with a plan locating each included part. Do not infer the present transaction from the original doctor's-house description. A residential survey quotation should identify the bought home; a combined commercial acquisition needs the wider scope made explicit. If the concern relates to the bay, parapet or an internal opening, attach the component's repair or alteration record to the specific defect enquiry.
Woolwich building survey questions
Is the Powis Street example evidence of an HCS instruction?
It is a building description in the council’s March 2022 appraisal. It establishes neither an HCS appointment nor present use or condition at that address.
What helps with a home in a former professional building?
Identify the earlier room groups and their current connection through the conversion plan. Mark the residential entrance and the contacts for intervening accommodation.
Does a parapet repair account establish complete roof renewal?
Ask which covering, supports and junctions the specification includes. Relate the work to the bought elevation and its available views.
How should several conversion projects be recorded?
Order the available layouts and alteration papers by date, locating each change. Keep permission and tenure questions with the solicitor alongside the physical brief.
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Content updated: October 2026.