Borrower side
Almost everybody advising you on a development is paid by somebody with an interest in the answer. The agent wants the sale, the contractor wants the job, the design team wants the scheme built. We hold none of those interests and we act for one side of a project only.
The problem
Gross development value is checked against comparable sales more or less continuously, because that data is public. Build cost is usually a rate carried across from the last scheme, and it carries no date.
That asymmetry decides more than it looks. Residual land value sits at the bottom of the appraisal and absorbs the error in every line above it, so an eight per cent movement in build cost can take a third of what you can pay for a site. The same rate that loses you good sites in a rising market lets bad ones through in a falling one.
The second problem is timing. By the time there are drawings worth measuring, the structural solution, the specification and the procurement route are all chosen, and each of those moved more cost than the measurement ever will. A surveyor appointed to price a finished design is doing arithmetic on decisions taken months earlier.
None of this requires anybody to have behaved badly. It is what happens when the only party without a stake in the outcome is not in the room.
Who instructs us
The instruction usually arrives at one of these moments, and what we can do differs sharply between them.
A residual land valuation is only as good as the build cost inside it, and that figure decides what you can bid. This is the cheapest hour on the whole project and the one most often skipped, because the site may not proceed.
Two structural solutions that both work will not both work commercially. An option comparison at this stage is worth more than a cost plan, because the answer can still change the drawing rather than only the budget.
A good share of instructions arrive after something has gone wrong. The first exercise is establishing where the position genuinely stands, which is rarely where the last report said. That reconciliation is uncomfortable and it is the only honest starting point.
What you get
Exclusions and assumptions on the face of the document rather than in an appendix, each assumption with a value and a note on what would establish it. A total without them is not advice.
Measured scope a contractor can price and cannot later reinterpret. Where the design is incomplete, the gaps are filled deliberately and recorded, not quietly.
What moved, what is going to move, and what decision is now due. A report that states a certified figure and a variance describes the past accurately and helps with nothing.
Changes reconciled against what was instructed and what was built, from a record kept during the job rather than reconstructed afterwards.
Services
The figure you take to a board or a lender, built from measured scope.
Measurement and valuation across the life of the scheme, with an opinion attached.
Where the contract names us to instruct, value and certify on design and build.
The monthly cycle, with change valued before it becomes a claim.
The documents and the route, which together decide how change gets priced later.
Closing the account on a record built during the works.
Questions
There is no such thing. The most useful point is before the land is committed, because the build cost inside your appraisal decides what you can bid. That work is a defined piece quoted as a fixed sum, so you know the cost before you commit to it.
Possibly nothing, and we will say so. Where a surveyor is measuring and valuing competently, a second opinion is worth having on the specific decisions that carry the most money rather than across the whole appointment. Where nobody is testing the position independently, that is a different conversation.
Frequently. The first output is a reconciliation of where the position actually stands: what has been certified, what has been instructed but not valued, what has been claimed and what is still open. It is uncomfortable reading and it is the only place to start.
No. The lender’s monitoring surveyor reports on whether your position is sound, which is a duty that conflicts directly with acting for you. We take one side of a project only, and where both approach us about the same scheme we take the first instruction and decline the second.
The threshold is complexity rather than value. A straightforward scheme at several million pounds may need less attention than a phased refurbishment at a fraction of that. If the commercial position is simple, we will say so rather than propose a fee against it.
Full lifecycle appointments are usually a percentage of construction value. Defined pieces of work are quoted as a fixed sum. Expert and dispute work runs at a day rate. The basis is agreed and written down before anything begins, with the exclusions stated rather than discovered.
Insights
