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About Surveyors
Any person may call themself a 'Surveyor' or 'Building Surveyor' and may offer a 'Surveying Service'.
Many exploit this free use of the word surveyor and mislead the public - and it is often at the expense of those purchasing a French property.
There are semi-retired construction/property industry workers, carpenters, jobbing builders and even farmers all offering 'surveying services' in France so beware of comments such as "35 years of experience" because it may not be in building surveying!
These individuals may, of course, be knowledgeable about buildings and their problems. However, the chances are that many will have limited or no formal/accredited building surveying training and they will not have been assessed on their building surveying knowledge by a professional body specialising in building surveying.
Fortunately, not everyone may use the term 'Chartered Building Surveyor', as it is a title legally protected by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
Whilst there is no professional French institution quite like the RICS, the good news is that there are a number of bi-lingual, specialist RICS registered Chartered Building Surveyors resident and practicing in France.
Chartered Surveyor or Chartered Building Surveyor?
Chartered Building Surveyors are fundamentally different from someone who calls themselves a 'surveyor' or a 'Chartered surveyor'.
There are just over 120,000 Chartered Surveyors worldwide and there are only about 9,000 with the specialist 'Chartered Building Surveyor' designation.
You
will find RICS members involved in the construction of major
public buildings, the management of agricultural estates,
mine and waste management, surveying the sea bed, managing
large property portfolios or auctioning antiques and much,
much more!
Because of this diversity there are numerous specialist 'designations' of surveyors. RICS surveyor 'designations' must not be confused with the RICS 'Faculties'. The 'faculties' are more like RICS interest groups (see below).
Obviously managing an agricultural estate or surveying the sea bed is somewhat different to inspecting and advising on the structure and fabric of buildings and the RICS surveyor 'designations' reflect this.
Clearly a Chartered Building Surveyor should be appropriately qualified, trained and experienced and it is for this reason that the RICS rules protect the use of the title 'Chartered Building Surveyor'.
Unlike many other Chartered Surveyors and architects, Chartered Building Surveyors are specifically trained and qualified to inspect and report on buildings.
Chartered Building Surveyors are schooled in building pathology, building defect analysis and they have studied the mechanisms of failure; it is this specialist knowledge which sets them apart from many other Chartered Surveyors and other building professionals.
Before being able to call themselves a 'Chartered Building Surveyor' certain criteria have to be met. A surveyor must have...
- an appropriate RICS accredited university degree/diploma AND...
- satisfied the RICS Building Surveying Faculty Board that she/he has appropriate experience and has practiced its core (building surveying) competencies (over a period of years under professional supervision) AND...
- passed the RICS Building Surveying Faculty's exacting examination known as The Assessment of Professional Competence.
Only when these stringent criteria have been met will a surveyor then be permitted to use the designation 'Chartered Building Surveyor'.
About the RICS Building Surveying Faculty
There are many faculties within the RICS organisation ( such as Arts & antiques, Commercial property, Facilities management, Management consultancy, Project management, Rural, Building surveying, Environment, Machinery & business assets, Planning & development, Residential property, Building control, Dispute resolution, Geomatics, Minerals & waste management and Quantity Surveying & Construction Valuation).
Perhaps rather confusingly for the public, any student, technical or corporate member of the RICS may be a member of any of the numerous faculties listed above.
Membership of the Building Surveying Faculty does not mean that the person is a Chartered Building Surveyor nor that they are competent to undertake building surveys. There are nearly 28,000 Building Surveying Faculty members and only about 9,000 Chartered Building Surveyors.
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