RICS Guidance Notes On Dilapidations

If you need help and advise with regard to leases, dilapidations, schedules of condition, dilaps claims, scots schedules , commercial structural surveys, commercial building surveys, structural reports, engineers reports, specific defects report, structural surveys, home buyers reports or any other property matters please call 0800 298 5424 for a friendly chat.

The latest Guidance Notes on Dilapidations from the RICS are another step forward in standardising / formatting / templating the dilapidations process and helping remove ambiguities. This when married with the Civil Procedure Rules, and let us not forget many surveyors are either not aware of the latest Guidance Notes or choose not to follow, or partly, follow them. However, with the Civil Procedure Rules in place the Guidance Notes really do have “teeth”.

Three things that we particularly like about the Guidance Notes are:

•  They are easy to read

•  They follow a logical format for the surveyor – this made sound a strange comment but many of the books that we have read really don't seem to follow how the surveyor works on the dilapidations claim.

•  Examples in the Guidance Notes

You cannot teach an old dog new tricks

Unfortunately quite a large number of surveyors choose not to use, or only partly use, the RICS Guidance Notes, or are simply ignorant of them.

Breaches of lease not noted in dilapidations claim!

We have recently dealt with a claim where the surveyor didn't note the breaches of the Lease, although he served five different dilapidations notices against our client. When questioned about this he advised us that he hadn't actually seen the Lease. From further questioning and discussions we discovered that all of his dilaps cases were dealt with in this way (i.e. not seeing the lease) and we don't think the thought crossed his mind to have a dilaps claim in an electronic/computerised form, as set out in the Guidance Notes, let alone a Scots Schedule dilapidations so that we could have just added our comments at the end, which is always much easier for everyone concerned.

Timescales?

We certainly don't think they work to any timescales other than their own!

What do you do where a surveyor blatantly ignores the RICS Guidance Notes?

It is really difficult to know what to do in such a situation, as if you politely point this out to the surveyor in question they do tend to take umbridge and refer to the fact that they have been doing dilapidations claims for x number of 100 years!

Equally, we have found to return to the schedule advising them that you can't carry on without the clauses being added can lead to a breakdown in communication almost before communications have begun! We have found the best way is to actually meet the surveyor at the property and get to know them a little and then to ask for their help and assistance by adding the breach clauses, which of course they should have done to start off with. We very much believe in Earl Nightingale's book Win Friends and Influence People as being the best method to proceed.

Life Long Learning and the RICS Guidance Notes

What is such a shame with Chartered Surveyors not working to the RICS Guidance Notes, particularly with the RICS Dilapidations Guidance Notes that are so simple to follow and are so readable, they just need to be read by the chartered surveyor.

We would argue that anyone involved with dilapidations should have it as compulsory reading. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) even insist on a lifelong learning programme to enable time to be set aside for updating the chartered surveyors knowledge. Many surveyors see this as a chore but we would argue that it is essential.

Finally, we would make the comment that surely the Royal Institutions of Chartered Surveyors has the means to ensure that specialist dilapidations surveyors go on CPD relating to their area of specialism! There is already a computerised monitoring system for the education of surveyors that surveyors have to fill in, which we feel should be made compulsory.

Too much information

There is too much information on property coming from the RICS and many other sources such as Property Week, Estates Gazette, etc, etc, to divide the critical information from the not so critical information. Whilst it could equally be argued that it is down to the individual to prioritise what they look at and consider for their specific interests and line of work we do feel that for any specialist in an area it should mean it is mandatory that they attend briefings on the new Guidance Notes.

Information on Dilapidations

Dilapidations Book and Article Reviews

If you truly do want an independent expert opinion from a chartered surveyor with regard to leases, dilapidations, schedules of condition, dilaps claims, scots schedules , commercial structural surveys, commercial building surveys, structural reports / engineers reports / specific defects report, structural surveys, home buyers reports or any other property matters please contact 0800 298 5424 for a chartered surveyor to give you a call back.

If you have a commercial leasehold or freehold then you may wish to look at our Dilaps Website at www.DilapsHelp.com and for Disputes go to our Disputes Help site www.DisputesHelp.com .

We hope you found the article of use and if you have any experiences that you feel should be added to this article that would benefit others, or you feel that some of the information that we have put is wrong then please do not hesitate to contact us (we are only human).

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