No Find, No Fee Leak Detection: How the Model Really Works
No find, no fee is a pricing decision, not a technical one. What the model covers, what counts as a find, what happens on the attendances where nothing is located, and the specific terms worth reading before you agree to it.
No find, no fee is a commercial term, not a technical one. It describes how a leak detection company prices the risk that a search comes up empty, and it says nothing at all about which instruments come out of the van, how long the attendance lasts, or whether the document you are left with is worth reading. Two companies can advertise the same four words and mean very different things by them.
This guide sets out what the model covers and what it leaves out, what a company means when it says it has found something, what happens on the occasions when nothing is found, and the terms worth reading before you agree. It is written for a householder or landlord paying privately, because that is the only situation the model was designed for.
What the Model Actually Promises
The promise is narrow and specific. If the company attends, carries out the investigation described in its terms, and does not locate a leak, it will not charge for that investigation. That is the whole of it. It is a pricing decision about one line on one invoice, and every other line is unaffected.
Companies offer it because it removes the objection that stops a homeowner picking up the phone. Somebody with a boiler losing pressure every fortnight and no visible water anywhere does not know whether a survey will produce an answer, and will often do nothing at all rather than pay for a maybe. Shifting that risk onto the company turns hesitation into a booking. It is a marketing mechanism, and a defensible one, provided both sides understand exactly what has been shifted.
What the model is not
It is not a guarantee of a result. It is not a warranty on a repair. It is not a promise that the visit is free if you dislike the answer, and it is not a discount. The company is not offering to work for nothing in the general case. It is offering to absorb its own cost in the narrow case where its own search produced no finding, and it has priced the rest of its work on the assumption that this will not happen often.
What Counts as a Find
This is the single term that decides whether the arrangement works in practice, and it is the one most often left undefined on a website. A find can mean at least five different things, and the gap between the strongest and the weakest of them is the difference between knowing where to cut and paying in full for a sentence you cannot act on.
| What the terms can mean by a find | What you are left holding | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| A located source: the failed component named and its position marked on the fabric | A repair that can be instructed and priced the same day | Hard to promise on deeply buried external runs, so those jobs are often carved out of the scheme entirely |
| A leak confirmed and narrowed to a bounded area | Enough to instruct a repair in most internal cases | The bounded area may be larger than you assumed. A metre of screed is a different job from a small aperture |
| A system identified as losing water, with no position given | A positive result under many written terms | You can be charged in full for a finding that still needs a second attendance before anyone can repair anything |
| Any defect found, including one unrelated to the symptom you reported | A fault list | A dripping overflow found while looking for a heating leak can trigger the full fee under the loosest wordings |
| Confirmation that no leak exists, with systems individually eliminated | A genuinely useful negative | Charged on most wordings, including ours: ruling a leak out is a result rather than the absence of one. Ask whether the eliminations come in writing, because that is the part a claim turns on |
Ask for the definition in writing before you book
The question is short: what specifically counts as a find under your terms, and does a system narrowed but not positionally located count. Any company running the model seriously has an answer ready, because it has had to decide where its own risk sits. A supplier that will not put the definition in an email before attending has told you something useful.
The same applies to the scope. Terms almost always cap the visit at a stated duration, and the cap is reasonable, because an uncapped commitment to search until something turns up is not a business. What matters is that it is stated in advance rather than discovered at the point the engineer stops.
What the Fee Covers and What It Does Not
Most disputes about no find, no fee are not really about the detection charge. They are about a second or third invoice line that the customer assumed was inside the scheme and was never inside it. The scheme almost always covers one line only.
| Invoice line | Usually inside the scheme? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance and non-invasive investigation | Yes | This is the line the model exists to price |
| The written report or findings summary | Usually, where one is produced at all | It is the product of the investigation rather than a separate service |
| Controlled opening up, lifting boards, cutting an aperture | No | It happens after a source has been located, so the condition has already been met |
| Repair of the failed component | No | A separate trade decision with its own price, often its own supplier |
| Reinstatement and making good | No | Building work, not investigation |
| Drying, dehumidification and monitoring | No | A separate discipline with its own equipment charges |
| A second attendance after an inconclusive first | Varies, and this is the term to read | Some firms treat it as a continuation, others as a fresh instruction |
The repair is a separate decision, and worth keeping separate
A company that is paid only when it finds something has an obvious commercial interest in finding something. That is a structural feature of the model rather than an accusation, and the way to manage it is to keep detection and repair as two decisions. Ask whether the same firm carries out the repair, whether it is quoted separately, and whether you are free to take the located source to your own plumber. The difference between a detection specialist and a plumber is covered in our guide to how a leak detection specialist differs from a plumber.
What Happens When Nothing Is Found
The engineer packs up, you are not invoiced for the investigation, and that is where most descriptions of the model stop. It should not be where the attendance stops, because a search that eliminated three systems has told you a great deal even though it produced no source.
A negative result is still information, and you should be given it
Ask for a written summary even on a no-charge visit. What it should record is unglamorous and specific:
- Which systems were tested, at what pressure, and for how long each one held.
- The meter reading with every outlet closed, and the reading after a stated interval.
- Moisture readings with the instrument type noted, so indicative and quantitative readings are not confused with each other.
- What was not tested, and why. Access refused, system already drained, construction unsuitable for the method.
- What the engineer would do next, and what would have to change before it was worth doing.
That page is worth having. It stops the next supplier repeating work you have already paid somebody to do, and it is the difference between an inconclusive visit and a wasted one. Our guide to what a leak detection survey involves sets out what a full written deliverable contains.
The common reasons nothing is found
- The leak is intermittent and was not running during the attendance. Pinholes under a floating floor and failing valve seats both behave this way.
- The water is not a plumbing failure at all. Condensation, rainwater ingress around a parapet or a roof detail, and rising damp all produce the same stain and none of them will pressure test.
- The system had already been isolated or drained before the engineer arrived, which removes the pressure that most detection methods depend on.
- The source is in a neighbouring demise, and nobody has been able to arrange access to it.
- The construction defeats the method. Thick insulation over a pipe run blunts a thermal survey, and a noisy plant room defeats an acoustic one.
Where the Model Does Not Work
No find, no fee is priced on an assumption that most searches succeed within a bounded attendance. Where that assumption fails, companies either exclude the category or quietly redefine a find until the exclusion stops mattering. It is worth knowing which categories sit outside it before you ring round.
The model cannot absorb an open-ended search. Long external supply runs, swimming pools and their buried circulation pipework, flat roofs and large commercial premises are the usual carve-outs, because on those jobs the search can reasonably take several attendances and specialist plant. Expect to pay for time on those, and treat a firm that offers no find, no fee on all of them without qualification as a firm that has defined a find very loosely somewhere.
It also cannot cover a problem that access prevents anyone from reaching. If the manifold is behind a fitted kitchen, if the flat above will not answer the door, or if the loft hatch has been plastered over, nothing in the scheme creates a right of entry or pays for a joiner. And it cannot make an elimination survey worthless. On many claims the most valuable output is a document proving the heating circuit held pressure and the supply was static at the meter, and a pricing model that treats that as a failure is pointing you in the wrong direction. Quotes vary so widely partly because of these definitions, which is the subject of our guide to why leak detection quotes differ so much.
How It Sits With an Insurance Instruction
If an insurer, a managing agent or a loss adjuster is instructing the investigation rather than you, the model is usually the wrong question to be asking. On an instructed loss the investigation is itself the deliverable. The party paying wants a documented answer, and a documented negative is an answer, so there is nothing for a no-find discount to attach to.
| You instruct privately | An insurer or agent instructs | |
|---|---|---|
| What is being bought | A located source you can act on | A documented finding, positive or negative |
| Who the report is addressed to | You | The instructing party, with a copy to the policyholder |
| How a negative result is treated | Usually no charge under the scheme | A chargeable finding that narrows the file |
| What pays for the search | You do | The trace and access clause, up to the limit on the schedule |
| Does no find, no fee apply | Yes, if it is offered | Normally not, and asking for it can confuse the instruction |
If you have already notified a claim, ask in writing whether your insurer will instruct the investigation or wants you to, and do that before booking anything privately. Work commissioned before that conversation can end up outside the clause that would have paid for it. The scope and reporting standard expected on an instructed job is set out in our specification for leak detection for loss adjusters and insurers.
What to Check Before You Agree
Two pieces of consumer legislation sit behind every private booking of this kind, and both are worth knowing about because they set the floor regardless of what the terms say.
The Consumer Rights Act 2015
Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a service supplied to a consumer must be performed with reasonable care and skill, and where no price was agreed in advance the consumer need pay only a reasonable price. Part 2 of the same Act deals with unfair terms and requires written terms to be transparent and intelligible. A definition of a find buried in small print and drafted so that almost anything qualifies is exactly the kind of term that provision exists to test.
Cancellation rights on a doorstep or distance booking
The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give a fourteen day cancellation right on contracts agreed at a distance or away from a trader's premises, which covers most leak detection bookings made by telephone. Two details matter. Regulation 28(1)(e) removes that right where you have specifically requested a visit for urgent repairs or maintenance, which many emergency call-outs will be. And under regulation 36 a trader may not begin the service inside the cancellation period unless you have expressly asked, in writing for an off-premises contract, in which case you pay a proportionate amount for what was supplied if you later cancel.
- Get the definition of a find in an email before the visit, not on the doorstep.
- Confirm the time the attendance is capped at, and what happens if the engineer runs out of it.
- Confirm in writing what a second attendance costs.
- Ask whether opening up, repair and making good are quoted separately, and get those figures before authorising them.
- Ask whether a written summary is provided even when nothing is found.
- Check the company carries public liability insurance and ask for the certificate. Cutting an aperture in somebody's ceiling is not a trivial risk.
Deciding Whether It Is the Right Basis for Your Job
The model suits one situation very well: a private customer with a symptom but no visible water, a system that can be pressurised, reasonable access, and no insurance instruction in play. A boiler dropping pressure, a meter turning overnight, a warm patch on a floor. The risk being shifted is real and small, and the arrangement is straightforward on both sides.
It suits other situations badly. Where the likely answer is condensation or roof ingress rather than plumbing, where the search area is genuinely large, or where somebody else is instructing and paying, a fixed price for a defined scope serves you better than a contingent one. Our pricing page sets out how work is scoped and quoted, and the leak detection page covers what an attendance involves.
The test is simple. Read the definition of a find, decide whether you would be content to pay the full fee for the weakest thing that satisfies it, and book accordingly.
How we help with this
If the article describes a problem you actually have, these are the visits that deal with it.
- our full guide to leak detection
How each method works and when it is the wrong tool for the job.
- leak detection in London
Finding a hidden leak without opening the property up first.
- how our pricing works
What sets the fee for a survey, and what is confirmed before we travel.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly counts as a find under no find, no fee?
It depends entirely on the written terms, which is why it is worth asking before booking. The strongest definition is a located source: the failed component named and its position marked so a repair can be instructed. Weaker definitions count a leak narrowed to a bounded area, a system identified as losing water with no position, or any defect found at all. Under the loosest wordings an unrelated dripping overflow can trigger the full fee, so ask for the definition in an email.
If you do not find a leak, is the visit completely free?
The investigation line is not charged, which is the whole of what the scheme promises. Ask in advance whether anything else could still be invoiced, such as a congestion or parking charge, an out of hours uplift, or a call-out fee priced separately from the survey. Reputable terms make this explicit. You should also still receive a written summary of what was tested, at what pressure and for how long, because that record has value even though the attendance produced no source.
Does no find, no fee apply if my insurer is paying?
Usually not, and it is generally the wrong thing to ask for. Where an insurer or managing agent instructs the work, they are buying a documented finding, and a documented negative that eliminates the heating circuit and the incoming supply is a useful finding rather than a failed job. The search is normally paid for under the trace and access clause up to the limit on the schedule. Ask your insurer in writing whether they will instruct the investigation before you book privately.
Why do some companies exclude certain jobs from the scheme?
Because the pricing only works where most searches succeed inside a bounded attendance. Long external supply runs, swimming pools with buried circulation pipework, flat roofs and larger commercial premises can all reasonably take several visits and specialist equipment, so firms either exclude them or price them by time. A company offering the model on every category without qualification has usually defined a find loosely enough that the exclusion stopped mattering, which is worth checking before you agree.
Can I use my own plumber for the repair afterwards?
Yes, and keeping detection and repair as two decisions is sensible. A company paid only when it finds something has a structural interest in finding something, so ask whether the repair is quoted separately and whether you are free to take the located source elsewhere. What you need in order to do that is a finding specific enough to act on: the component named, the position marked on the fabric, and the access required described. A vague conclusion is hard to hand to anyone else.
How long does a no find, no fee attendance last?
Terms almost always cap it at a stated duration, and that cap is reasonable, since an uncapped commitment to search until something appears is not a viable business. What matters is that the cap is stated before the visit rather than discovered at the point the engineer stops. Ask what the cap is, what happens if time runs out with the work part done, and whether a return visit is treated as a continuation of the same instruction or as a fresh chargeable one.