Local authority appointing officer fails to act correctly under s.10(8)

PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL

Mr P. Antino BSc (Hons) MSc MRICS CIOB

A.P.A Property Services Ltd

145 New London Road

Chelmsford

Essex

CM2 0QT

BY EMAIL ONLY: enquiries@apaproperty.com

Your ref: C994a/PA/NB

Our ref: REG0000138725 – please quote this reference on all correspondence

8 January 2018

Dear Mr Antino

Re: Complaint regarding Mr ???????????? MRICS

I write further to previous correspondence regarding your complaint against the above individual.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. RICS takes its regulatory role seriously and

would be unable to discharge this role fully without information being brought to its attention by members of the public and Members of RICS. RICS will investigate complaints to ascertain whether there has been a breach of RICS’ Rules. Not every breach will result in disciplinary action being taken as RICS takes a risk based approach to regulation and applies the principle of proportionality.

An investigation has been conducted to establish whether there is evidence of a potential breach of RICS’ Rules of Conduct for Members and this investigation has now concluded.

I have considered your letter, dated 12 July 2017 (with accompanying enclosures), and the

response from Mr ?????????, with supporting information.

My understanding of your complaint is that Mr ????????, whose role was the Appointing Officer (selected Mr ?????? as Third Surveyor), failed to request your contact details and/or contact you in relation to this selection, and that he selected Mr ???? without inquiring with Mr ??? as to which Surveyors had been included within the list of proposed Third Surveyors and/or whether any of these had been rejected by you.

It is also my understanding that Mr ?????? failed to respond to your correspondence dated 13 June 2017 and 4 July 2017, and that he failed to provide the Complaints Procedure when requested).

We have considered Mr ???? response; his view was that the Party Wall Act does not expressly

require the Appointing Officer to contact both Surveyors, and he had received advice from other Party Wall Surveyors in this regard. Further, the Third Surveyor (Mr ?????) confirmed he would contact all parties upon appointment. Mr ????? further advised that he had acted in good faith.

We have also been advised that you submitted a complaint to ??????? District Council, who considered your complaint and that this was not upheld.

The Head of Regulation has decided that there is no realistic prospect of establishing that Mr ?????? is liable for disciplinary action.

RICS will not, therefore, be proceeding with disciplinary action against Mr Dixon and I am now

closing my file.

However, we have provided advice to Mr ????? regarding the communication of the selection of Third Surveyors to both Surveyors (for the Adjoining Owner(s) and for the Building Owner(s)); i.e. both Surveyors must be notified, and if the contact details of one of the Surveyors is unknown, the details should be sought from the other Surveyor. In addition, we have provided advice to Mr?????? regarding responding to correspondence received.

Thank you for contacting RICS Regulation and assisting us in enhancing the risk profiling of our Members.

Yours sincerely

Miss ??????????? BSc(Hons) GDip PGDip

Lead Investigator

RICS Regulation

t: +44 (0)2476 868559

e: ?????????y@rics.org