About Reltic
An independent seat at a table where nobody else has one
Reltic is a UK construction commercial consultancy. We sit between the design team, the client and the contractor without belonging to any of them, and our only output is commercial advice that can be defended.
What we are
A commercial consultancy, and deliberately nothing else.
Reltic exists to make quantities, cost data and commercial decisions defensible at every stage of a development, from feasibility through to final account.
That is the whole business. We measure, we price, we procure, we control cost through delivery, we settle accounts, and where we are appointed by a lender we monitor. Everything we produce is intended to be handed to a third party who will test it.
The practice is deliberately narrow. Growing into design, into delivery or into software would each be a reasonable commercial decision and each would compromise the one thing clients actually instruct us for.
Not a main contractor
We do not build and we do not run a supply chain. No framework, no preferred bidder, no trade relationship that a recommendation might protect.
Not a design practice
We do not design and we earn nothing from the scheme developing. There are no drawings of ours to defend when the measure does not match the model.
Not a software vendor
We license nothing to you. In practice we work in whatever environment the project already runs on, and no tool is being sold underneath the advice.
The rule
One side per project. In writing, at appointment.
We act for developers and investors on some schemes and for lenders on others. Never for both on the same one, in either order, at any interval.
Checked first
Before scope or fee, the scheme is checked against our current and previous appointments. It is the first thing we do, not a formality at the end.
Declined plainly
If we are on the other side of the scheme, we decline and say so. No information barriers, no carefully worded arrangement.
Disclosed openly
Where we act for a party you are dealing with on a different scheme, you are told before you instruct us rather than afterwards.
Recorded on every page
The capacity we act in is printed on the cover and in the footer of every document we issue, so it travels with the document.
Held for the whole project
The side does not change part way through because a different instruction becomes available. It holds until the account is settled.
This rule costs us work. It is also the only reason our reports are accepted by the other side of the table.
A monitoring surveyor certifying against a cost plan their own firm produced adds nothing to a credit file. A cost consultant advising a developer while quietly hoping for the funder's monitoring instruction is not giving independent advice, whatever the internal arrangements say.
Independence that depends on professional restraint is not independence. It has to be structural, which means turning down the second instruction, and it means saying so openly when we do.
How we work
What you can expect from an appointment.
A written scope
What is included, what is excluded and what has been assumed, agreed before work starts. Fixed fee wherever the scope allows one.
A stated basis
Every figure carries its source and its measurement basis. Nothing rests on a rate that cannot be explained two years later.
A plain conclusion
A view, stated in the document. Where the position is weak it says so, rather than being softened into something unusable.
British English, British practice
NRM and JCT based work, UK market data, and documents written for a UK reader.
Senior attention
The person you speak to is the person doing the work. Small practice, deliberately, with the capacity that implies stated honestly.
UK-wide instruction
London office, instructed across the United Kingdom. Site attendance and travel priced openly in the fee.
Questions
About the practice.
How big is the practice?
Small and specialist. That is a deliberate choice, and it has consequences we are open about: we can give a scheme senior attention throughout, and we cannot absorb an unlimited number of instructions at once. If we do not have the capacity to do a job properly we will tell you rather than take it and resource it thinly.
Do you have professional indemnity insurance?
Yes. The level of cover and the terms are confirmed with the appointment documentation, and we are happy to confirm them before you instruct. Where a scheme or a funder requires a specific level of cover, tell us at the outset so it can be dealt with properly.
What does the company name mean legally?
The trading identity is Reltic, Independent Commercial Advisory. The legal entity is Reltic Construction Consultants Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 12581120, with its office at 60 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 2EW. Appointments, insurance and invoices are in the company name.
Do you work outside the UK?
The practice is built around UK measurement standards, UK contract forms and the UK market, so that is where the work is. Enquiries from outside the UK are considered on the specifics rather than turned away automatically, but we will be direct about where our knowledge stops.
Work
Schemes we have worked on
Described by shape and by commercial problem rather than by name. Client, address and design team stay out of it unless every party has agreed in writing that they can appear. See selected projects.
Insights