SURVEYOR – SO WHAT IS IN A NAME?

Unfortunately, anyone may call them self a 'Surveyor' or ‘Building Surveyor’ and can offer a 'Surveying Service'.  Fortunately, not everyone may use the term 'Chartered Building Surveyor', as it is a legally protected title says Martin Rushton of surveyorsinfrance.com.

Because there is no control over the use of the word ‘surveyor’, many so-called ‘experts’ exploit this often at the expense of those purchasing property in France.   Amanda, who receives enquiries for pre-purchase surveys at surveyorsinfrance.com, goes on to say that at surveyorsinfrance.com we are aware of retired estate agents, engineers, construction/property industry workers, carpenters, jobbing builders and even farmers offering building surveying services here in France! 

Martin does say;  in fairness, some of these ‘experts’ may be knowledgeable about buildings and their problems. However, the chances are that many of them will have limited or no accredited specialist building surveying qualifications or training, they will probably have picked up their knowledge during the course of their day to day work and they will not have been assessed on their building surveying knowledge, skills and experience by a professional body specialising in building surveying.  Some are simply incompetent.

Amanda comments that many operators in the French property market will tell you that French buyers do not bother with pre-purchase surveys (which is generally speaking true) and if you say you want a survey to be done, the agent will probably direct you to an architect, being unaware of what a Chartered Building Surveyor is or that there are businesses like surveyorsinfrance.com registered and operating within France.

Of course some architects have knowledge of building defects but Martin’s own experience is that this knowledge will usually fall short of what one would call specialist building surveying knowledge.  He remarks that he personally spent the early years of his career employed by architects designing new buildings and working on renovation projects.  In the mid 1980’s, he says, when I started my specialist building surveying studies at Reading university, it soon made me realise just how much I (and the architects that I worked with) did not know about the specialist subjects of building pathology and the mechanisms of building failure!

Picking up knowledge whilst working in associated fields is all very well, but a carpenter who has only ever worked on new-build construction sites is hardly knowledgeable enough to advise about the state of a medieval farm house in rural France.  A lifetime of experience ‘surveying’ properties in a major UK city for an estate agent’s listings does not mean that the surveyor (qualified or not) has the appropriate knowledge and experience needed to assess the condition of buildings in France.  Managing an ancient agricultural estate in northern England does not provide the experience needed to competently assess a fifty year old concrete framed house in the South of France and so on.

What can buyers of French property do to ensure that they are getting sound building surveying advice?

Over 130 years ago, in the UK, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) was formed and since then it has grown to have a current membership of over 120,000 across 120 countries.  Before being admitted as a corporate member, all applicants are appropriately vetted to ensure they are suitably qualified and experienced in their field.

RICS members’ services are very diverse. Not only are they experts in all matters relating to real estate and construction, but they can also offer strategic advice in the economics, valuation, finance, investment and management of all the world’s physical assets.

You will find RICS members involved in the construction of major public buildings, the management of agricultural estates, mine surveying, waste management, surveying the sea bed, managing large property portfolios or auctioning antiques and much, much more! 

So what is the RICS Building Surveying Faculty and what is a Chartered Building Surveyor?

Because of this diversity there are numerous ‘Faculties’ within the RICS organisation to cover the members’ interests.  The Building Surveying Faculty is just one of them.  There are many other faculties within the RICS organisation (Arts & antiques, Commercial property, Facilities management, Management consultancy, Project management, Rural, Environment, Machinery & business assets, Planning & development, Residential property, Building control, Dispute resolution, Geomatics, Minerals & waste management and Quantity Surveying & Construction Valuation).

Obviously valuing antiques, managing an auctioneering business or surveying the sea bed is somewhat different to inspecting and advising on the structure and fabric of buildings.  The structure of the RICS reflects this and it is why there is the specialist ‘Chartered Building Surveyor’ designation.

Perhaps rather confusingly for the public, any student, technical or corporate member of the RICS may be a member of any of the numerous faculties listed above. 

The statement “a member of the RICS Building Surveying Faculty” should not imply competency in building surveying. This is governed by the ‘Chartered Building Surveyor’ title.

Clearly a Chartered Building Surveyor should be appropriately qualified, trained and experienced and it is for this reason that the RICS rules protect the use of the title ‘Chartered Building Surveyor’.

Unlike many Chartered Surveyors, engineers and architects, Chartered Building Surveyors are specifically trained and qualified to inspect and report on buildings.  

They know not only how to design and put them together; but more importantly for you when you want to buy a property, they understand why a building may eventually fall apart (as all structures do if not correctly looked after)! 

Chartered Building Surveyors are schooled in building pathology, building defect analysis and the mechanisms of failure; it is this specialist knowledge which sets them apart from many other Chartered Surveyors and other building professionals.

Before being able to call yourself a ‘Chartered Building Surveyor’ you have to meet certain criteria:

·                    you must have an appropriate RICS accredited university degree/diploma and...

·                    you must satisfy the RICS Building Surveying Faculty Board that you have the appropriate experience and have practiced it’s core (building surveying) competencies (for graduates this is usually at least two years under professional supervision) and…

·                    you must have passed the RICS Building Surveying Faculty’s exacting examination known as The Assessment of Professional Competence.

 

Only when these stringent criteria have been met will you then be permitted to use the designation ‘Chartered Building Surveyor’. 

Of the 120,000 or so Chartered Surveyors who are members of the RICS, only a minority (just over 9,000) are specialist Chartered Building Surveyors.

The good news is that there are a number of bi-lingual, specialist Chartered Building Surveyors resident and practising in France!  So you are able to obtain the specialist advice that you need to give you the confidence you need to go forward with your purchase.

To be sure that the person is a Chartered Building Surveyor, scrutinise their headed paper for those three words and also make sure that they confirm to you their RICS registration number (which you can verify with the RICS).

If you want to check that a business is registered in France, ask for it’s SIRET or SIREN number and check under what category or industry the business is registered by asking for the Code APE (not just the numbers but the description that follows).  For example, the surveyorsinfrance.com Code APE is: ‘742C Ingénierie, études techniques’.  As per the UK low turnover businesses do not have to register for TVA (French VAT) but most genuinely registered surveying businesses in France should have a TVA number.

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