Valuation and survey
RICS firms and surveying practices, where the fee is fixed and the only variable is how long the report takes to write.
Where it breaks
A small sample of the problems we hear most often in valuation and survey. Not a complete list, and not all of them will be yours.
- 01
Most of a valuation is gathering, not valuing
Title from Land Registry, rateable value from the VOA, planning history from the council, the EPC from the register, listing status, flood and contamination, corporate ownership from Companies House. Six or seven sources, one at a time, then the comparables, then the firm's own template. The inspection is the short part.
- 02
Comparables that are already weeks old
The free evidence base publishes on a lag of several weeks and the government's own page says not to read recent months in isolation, so in a moving market the comparable is evidence for a value that has already gone. Meanwhile every report the practice has signed is a comparable with the reasoning attached, locked in a closed PDF nobody can search.
- 03
The diary is the bottleneck
Bookings arrive by phone and email and get slotted in by hand, so a surveyor drives past three instructions to reach the fourth.
- 04
Red Book compliance checked by eye
A partner reads every report to confirm the basis of value is stated, the assumptions and special assumptions are disclosed, the minimum contents are present and the record of the valuation exists. That is the most expensive person in the building proofreading.
- 05
The claim arrives once the market has moved
A negligence claim lands years later, after a default or a resale, and the file has to speak for itself. Whether the report evidenced the inspection you were paid for, and whether the reasoning was written down at the time, is decided long after everyone has forgotten the job.
- 06
The tools you've started using have to be declared
Firms are now required to disclose in advance where they use AI on an instruction, hold a register of the associated risks, and let clients question it. In a practice where individual surveyors adopt tools themselves, nobody can say what is running on which instructions.
What we'd build
A small sample of the kind of thing we build. What we'd actually scope depends on which of the problems above is costing you most.
The gathering done before you get there
An address goes in and the title, rateable value, planning history, energy performance, listing status, flood and environmental position and corporate ownership come back assembled. Inspection notes captured on site as structured data rather than scribbled and retyped. The report builds in your own format around the figure and the reasoning you set.
More reports per surveyor on the same fee, with the judgement getting the time instead of the gathering.
Your own back catalogue, searchable
Every report the practice has produced turned into a comparables base you can query by street, property type and date, with the thin evidence bases flagged before issue rather than challenged afterwards.
Stronger evidence bases, comparables found in minutes, and fewer reports challenged after issue.
Compliance checked before the partner reads it
Basis of value, assumptions, special assumptions, the minimum contents and the record of the valuation all checked for presence and consistency, with anything missing flagged to the signatory rather than to a reviewer three weeks later. The partner reads for judgement.
Partner review time cut, and Red Book omissions caught before issue rather than at audit.
The AI register and the declaration, produced
A record of which tools are in use on which categories of instruction, what each one does and doesn't do, and the risks and mitigations against each. The advance declaration wording generated for the terms of engagement, and a log of what was declared, to whom, and when.
The disclosure obligation evidenced on demand, without a partner assembling it each time.
A diary that routes itself
Instructions booked against geography and surveyor availability, so a day's inspections run in one direction.
More inspections per surveyor per day, and less of the day spent in the car.
Recognise any of these?
Thirty minutes with a founder. Walk us through the problems your team lives with and we'll talk about whether any of it has to stay that way.