Since we have been involved with the survey world, we have received thousands of copies of RICS surveys that are shockingly bad. Most are clearly negligent and incompetent.
We have had to help some of these clients with expert witness surveys to take those incompetent surveyors to Court. RICS as an organisation is bogged down with its obsession with tick box surveys - surveyors fill in little forms with a list of common answers and phrases. One such phrase is 'Get a PCA timber and damp survey' - which appears every time the rics surveyor sticks his damp meter into a wall and the little red light appears. This very action defines negligence and incompetence. If the surveyor has to use a £20 bit of plastic gadgetry to 'detect' moisture, he or she has not even read the most basic of information available - the instructions. Even those tell you that it cannot be used in masonry, and can only reliably measure moisture in freshly felled timber.
Why do we say RICS is Not Fit For Purpose? If a surveyor does not understand the physics and chemistry of water, he or she should not be surveying a dolls house. There is a wealth of information that documents the science of water. Water is the single biggest causative agent of deterioration of a building. If you don't understand the science of water, how can you survey a building? By taking money from a home purchaser - you make the case that you, as a rics surveyor, have the ability to survey a house. By using a damp meter you automatically prove that you do NOT understand the first thing about what is causing deterioration of that building.
Peter co-wrote the RICS Moisture Methodology - he tried to help this dinosaur-like organisation into the 21st Century. He took a useless document produced by the damp industry, and heavily promoted by them to rics. He sat in board meetings at RICS headquarters in London. He took the draft, ripped it to pieces, and made it make sense. RICS never paid him for any of this - including train fares and expenses for the visits. They promised this would change the way surveyors worked with moisture in buildings. Promise after promise was made that it would 'go through legals and become a Standard for every surveyor'. It eventually appeared with the PCA logo on it, and was consigned to a remote page somewhere on their website. Not a single RICS surveyor was told to use the methodology. It is not a professional standard. It is quite frankly a joke. A total waste of professional time.
Having seen the incompetence of RICS at first hand, Peter decided to take matters into his own hands - and wrote The Warm Dry Home - the industry standard reference to moisture in buildings. It is written in simple style, profusely illustrated, and aimed very squarely at both homeowners and building professionals.
Since the release of the book, Pete has not seen or heard of a RICS surveyor who has read the moisture methodology. We have been swamped with copies of shockingly bad RICS surveys, both Level 2 and even more worryingly, hundreds of Level 3 surveys that contain the most unbelievable rubbish. 'Negligent' does not begin to cover just how bad these surveys are. Nearly all of them still refer their client to PCA damp industry fraudsters for any 'advice' about damp in buildings. Nearly all of them include photos of RICS surveyors holding a damp meter against a wall and stating the house has 'rising damp' or some sort of damp problem.
NONE of the buildings in these surveys actually DO have anything remotely resembling rising damp.
The horrifying result of some of these surveys is that many house sales fall through, because these incompetents make statements as so called professionals 'that the house has serious damp problems'. We've had untold numbers of vendors on the phone, sometimes in tears, after a sale falls through due entirely to the incompetence of a RICS surveyor acting for a purchaser, who hasn't a clue what moisture is, or how to measure or diagnose any issues found.
The negligence runs very deep - older houses need specialised knowledge to survey - and the flood of negligent RICS surveys pays a solemn tribute to the lack of knowledge of their surveyors.
We could say a lot more - the number of shocked news reports about the resignation of the entire rics professional standards board is just the tip of the iceberg. RICS is an organisation mired in serious problems. RICS does not have any form of external independent verification of any of its courses, standards, or knowledge of their surveyors. Surveyors are never examined or assessed for their competence once they become a member.
RICS Professional Standards Board Quits
More News about their Resignation:
RICS bosses quit after damning governance review
RICS Chief Exec loses his payout after damming independent review of RICS
We will add some examples of the shambolic reports we see on a daily basis from RICS surveyors - they are shocking in their negligence and incompetence.
Heritage House Surveys used to be 'RICS Accredited'. The only thing that you need to do in order to be 'Accredited' is to fill in a form and pay some money. There is zero assessment of the survey company, or the experience and knowledge of the surveyors running it. As such, rics accreditation is worthless. All it does is to allow a firm to display the rics logo - which the public have been brainwashed into believing is evidence of a high standard of knowledge and professionalism.
After a recent incident in which Pete was accused by RICS 'compliance' that he hadn't done a survey properly, we made the decision to cease any involvement with them.
In this case, Pete advised the purchaser of a multi million pound property that the timber frame was seriously defective and needed minimum £150,000 spending on it. He also pointed out that most of the work done to the Grade 2* Listed building was illegal, and had no Listed Building Consent. His advice was that the client should a) Ensure the vendor provided proof that the work was Legal by getting retrospective Consent, and b) obtain a detailed timber frame survey and quotes for repairs. Client complained to rics that as a result of the survey, their purchase had fallen through and they wanted compensation! The property was subsequently taken off the market.