This is something that I reported to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in 2021.
The unregulated firm (firm “R”)
There is a surveying firm that is run by someone that works as an expert witness. Let’s call this “firm R”.
I was given a copy of this individual’s CV. This appeared in several disclosure bundles that I was given as part of cases that I was involved in.
The very first line of his expert CV caught my attention.
“I am a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors”.
That was literally the first line.
After seeing that, I decided to check if this person appeared in the RICS members directory. They didn’t.
I emailed the firm asking them to confirm this individual’s RICS membership number.
The response that came back said: “he is a member but not chartered… he’s on the senior professional technical route…”
He was not a qualified member of RICS. He wasn’t AssocRICS, MRICS, or FRICS.
He was given his membership number when he enrolled for assessment. That is not the same as being a qualified member.
Why put that on your CV then? Well, the only explanation would be to mislead people.
If he didn’t want to mislead anyone, all he needed to say was that he was currently enrolled on the senior professional route and he planned to come forward for assessment in the future.
He didn’t do that.
He made a statement, which he subsequently defended, which would make someone think that he was far more qualified than he actually was.
Let’s take a closer look
This individual ran two different surveying firms.
They had three fee earning staff all claiming to be chartered surveyors when they were not.
You heard that right. Not one, not two, but three. And that’s just what I know about in my little bubble down in the south-east of England.
That’s not a coincidence. There’s an obvious pattern there.
Reporting this to RICS
This was reported to RICS in 2021.
The individual, despite technically being a “member”, was not sanctioned. There was no published outcome for this at all.
RICS are able to investigate a complaint and publish the outcome even if the member is not a qualified member.
RICS have done this before when people have made false statements on their application form etc. They decided they didn’t want do that in this case.
So what’s the situation now?
Five years on, this individual is still not qualified with RICS.
As far as I am aware, he is not qualified with a professional body anywhere.
He still practises as an expert witness.
He still runs a surveying firm. The same firm where multiple fee earners were falsely claiming to be chartered surveyors.
The surveying firm is still not regulated. They are not answerable to anyone. Consumers are none the wiser.
Make it make sense.