A conveyancing client who asks their solicitor for a surveyor is asking for a judgement, so here is the position plainly.
Cooper & Codex is a RICS-regulated building surveying practice (firm no. 925582) in North Norfolk, with £1m of professional indemnity cover. I do surveys and defect investigation on historic, traditional and vernacular buildings across Norfolk and East Anglia: the flint, clay lump, carrstone, pantile and thatch that most of the county's older housing is made of, and that a general-practice survey often reads badly.
What your client gets
- A response to any enquiry within one working day, and a fixed fee quoted before instruction.
- A report that separates what matters now, what wants watching, and what needs a specialist or a legal enquiry.
- Condition and defects, written to be acted on. Anything that needs a legal enquiry is flagged plainly, so it does not surface late in the chain.
- An honest word when a building needs less than a full survey, or a different firm entirely.
What I don't do
I don't carry out valuations. Where a commission calls for one, I'll say so in the first conversation.
How to describe the practice
Two sentences to lift, if a client asks:
Cooper & Codex is a RICS-regulated building surveying practice in North Norfolk, run by Hamish Cooper MRICS: over twenty years reading historic and traditional buildings, eight and a half of them with the National Trust. Surveys and defect investigation across Norfolk and East Anglia, with a fixed fee quoted before commitment and a response within one working day.
Fees, and what you can tell a client
Most surveys fall between £600 and £900 at Level 2 and £900 and £1,800 at Level 3, with the premier tier between £1,200 and £2,400. Each one is quoted individually and fixed before instruction. Cooper & Codex is not VAT-registered, so the figure I quote is the figure your client pays.
No referral fee passes either way. If you recommend me there is nothing for you to disclose, and nothing for a client to wonder about afterwards.
Timing
A reply to any enquiry within one working day. The inspection takes between half a day and a full day depending on the building, and the report normally follows within five working days of it.
Referring a client
Use the form below, or send me the property address and a line about the client's position. If there is a deadline in the chain, say so and I'll tell you honestly whether I can meet it.