Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

[pampampam]

I was quote a fixed fee for services of a Party Wall Surveyor to act as an 'agreed/appointed surveyor' for the Building Owner and Adjoining Owner. Fee was quoted plus disbursements.

However, when the party wall award was made [a report of the condition of the AO's property] the surveyor has charged me for practically every page he printed, including A3 colour print outs of the architects' plans, A4 colour photos of the properties in question, a set amount for each email and for each photograph and also for a CD containing all the photographs - all times x 3 reports [the Building Owner, the Adjoining Owner and the Party Wall surveyor] so it adds up to a pretty penny.

The fixed fee quoted didn't say 'you will be charged for every page of the party wall act award' and I feel the PW surveyor should have been more up front and said that the fixed fee didn't include the production of the party wall act award/report and this would be extra.

I have used the analogy of my architect who also charged a fixed fee but didn't when he sent the plans then charge me on a per A3 sheet basis!

The PW surveyor asked that we communicate via email but then when it comes to the award itself, it's all done by post and I get charged almost £300 extra.

Can anyone shed any light on this - how can these disbursements be described as reasonable?

Pam

[stevemLS]

Re: Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

It does sound unreasonable to me, in my line (law) disbursements means sums expended on behalf of the client to third parties.

The report is an integral part of the professional service and I would have said that it is necessarily and wholly included within the fee.

How much was the fixed fee (would go to proportionality)?

[pampampam]

Re: Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

Hi Steve
Thanks very much for your quick response. The fee to act as the agreed/appointed surveyor was in the region of £1,200. I hadn't thought about proportionality so thanks for that and I will include that in my response as they have now sent a further threatening letter saying that if I don't pay up by the 6th they will issue court proceedings against me on the 7th to recover the costs. A 25% levy for disbursements in this context does seem rather high.

I have suggested that going forward they are more transparent about their fees and that they explicitly state that the price quoted does not include the printing of the report and that 3 copies will be required, one for the office, one for the AO and one for the BO and that clients are charged on a per photo basis and that the usual number of photographs in a straightforward case would be approximately 150 photos. I think this is excessive we've got dozens on a brick wall which is the AO's property which borders the alleyway between the two properties, over which we have right of way and it's almost brick by brick! Even got photos of their lounge carpet - it wasn't lifted so unsure why we got those as well. Plus of course I've been charged for every email sent and stored on their system.

Really appreciate your assistance, I did trawl the net without success.

Thanks again, I will email the firm concerned and let you know the outcome.

regards

[pampampam]

Re: Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

The party wall surveyor also charged me 65p mileage charges - I tried to circumvent our horrible AOs who refused to use [as is their right I understand under the PWA] our nominated PW surveyor who lived less than 2 miles away and instead appointed their own PW surveyor [at our cost obviously] whose office is over 150 miles away - purely we feel to ramp up our costs.....1. I understand that most PW surveyors in this situation would put to the proposed client that they would be better served choosing a local PW surveyor and 2. 65p seems quite high? Anyway back to the email. grrr.......

[stevemLS]

Re: Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

The travel expenses might be reasonable but in your position I would be setting out an argument as I mentioned earlier, that these are not disbursements in the true meaning of the word, they are expenses wholly and necessarily integral to the commission and as such should be included in the fixed fee or at the very least it should have been made plain that they were not included and would be separately charged - with information about the rates.

[pampampam]

Re: Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

Thanks for the advice. I wrote to the PW surveyors but they are having none of it. I cited reasonableness in terms of the disbursements but they are saying that their terms and conditions clearly set out postage as a disbursement.
I've looked at the T&Cs again and they do list Printing A4 B&W @ 0.25 and colour at £1.00 and A3 at 0.60 and £1.50 respectively. However it is not clear that the outcome of the commission [i.e. the Party Wall AWARD document] will be charged at these rates. My argument remains when I commissioned an architect on a fixed fee, they then didn't charge me for each A3 sheet of the plans. The T&Cs also says photos 10p per photo but the photos were again an integral part of the commission according to the PW surveyor and these were on disc, not printed out - so again I think the T&Cs should be clearer. It does also say to be fair - postage and stationery at cost. Further on it refers to hard copy printing and says copies of all documents including drawings will be supplied to the client in pdf format on a 'free of charge' basis and should the client or any other parties involved request hard copy prints they will be charged back to the client. So I never asked for hard copies of the award to be sent with all their additional colour photos of the houses in question. It also goes on about document storage where the firm relies on electronic copies. When I queried the disbursements it seems that 'Electronic Files' at 25p each - refer to each and every email. 90 in this case they've charged me for.

So I've paid everything bar the printing costs for the awards [one hard copy for me, one for the AO and one for the office - despite their earlier statement they rely on electronic files] the electronic files costs [emails] and the photo costs but they are now threatening me with court. I have complained to the partner in the firm but no joy. Is there a governing body I could complain to which oversees all party wall surveyors.

Yours wishing we'd never started this extension and gone on holiday instead.........

Thank you

[pampampam]

Re: Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

and I've just realised after paying for the mileage at 0.65p per mile - I forgot to pay the v.a.t. as well - their t&cs do state that v.a.t is chargeable on all disbursements. I thought hmrc said that firms should not charge v.a.t. on disbursements or perhaps I'm just too tired and need to go to bed....aw:

[pampampam]

Re: Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

also, I have been charged £6.00 for a Land Registry title and £3.00 they say for checking the boundaries - however when I've looked on the Land Registry website it says the fee is £3.00 for land registry titles - so it looks like they've over charged me for the the first one. Then are they really allowed to charge v.a.t. on top of this? Their T&cs says v.a.t. will be added to all fees and disbursements.

on the v.a.t. bit
1. Should a client be charged V.A.T. on disbursements? The HMRC website states:
When you make payments on behalf of your customers, for goods or services received and used by them, you might be able to treat these payments as ‘disbursements’ for VAT purposes. This means that you:

• don’t charge VAT on them when you invoice your customer
• can’t claim back any VAT on them

Yet I have been charged V.A.T. on all the items listed in my invoice as disbursements? and the PW surveyor has said that hmrc requires them to add v.a.t. to all disbursements.

definitely going to bed now.

[stevemLS]

Re: Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

I have no idea on the VAT.

On the Land Registry, you pay £3 for the office copy of the title entries and a further £3 for the associated plan, you can't usually interpret the plan without the title entries - so does that account for the £6? Or is it £6 + £3? If the latter, could it be that they have also obtained the plan for your neighbours property?

[pampampam]

Re: Disbursements: Party Wall Surveyor - reasonable?

Thanks StevemLS - that makes more sense! Sorry getting slightly hysterical and wound up due to lack of sleep there...! I do think it's a bit rich that they charge v.a.t. on these disbursements as well. They are now saying they will add 8% to the outstanding bill of £130 but I am going to complain to the Faculty of PW surveyors [or fellow - can't remember] as I think it is unreasonable that I have to pay for the actual pieces of paper that make up the report and for email storage!