Survey and inspection are the first tasks on the assessment of a building condition, comprising the identification and registry of its main structural and non-structural anomalies. The approach to be used on the inspection process should be pre-selected according to the building typology, the final goal of the project, the level of detail intended and the intervention scale. Particularly in the case of the ancient buildings, and due to the general lack of knowledge on traditional materials and building techniques, such inspection and survey actions are often inadequate, compromising consequently the reliability of the diagnosis and the subsequent efficiency of eventual rehabilitation and/or retrofitting actions. On the basis of the exposed, this paper presents a reflection on strategies and inspection processes for the assessment and diagnosis of old buildings, presenting the use of inspection datasheets as privileged tools in the implementation of effective survey and diagnosis actions.