So RICS tell everyone that they are SO superior because they have a royal charter. Their strapline is "RICS - the mark of property professionalism". So as we receive thousands of complaints about RICS surveys, we thought we'd take a look at their track record..
Firstly - the real meaning of this royal charter. Its surprisingly simple:
It turns a group of people into a legal entity. This allows the organisation to own property (so can my little company) enter into contracts (so can my company) and be sued without the individual members being directly liable ( that’s what a limited company structure is all about).
As a result, the governing body, staff, and members of the organisation benefit from limited liability in regard to the Institute’s debts and legal actions. This is the same level of protection afforded limited liability companies incorporated under the more recent Companies Acts, originating in the 19th century.
The process of obtaining one is lengthy and involves demonstrating pre-eminence, stability, and a commitment to the public interest.
It received a Royal charter as The Surveyors' Institution on 26 August 1881, The charter required RICS to "promote the usefulness of the profession for the public advantage in the UK and in other parts of the world."
So, does the RICS now demonstrate pre-eminence? Stability? A commitment to public interest?
In September 2021, an independent review exposed poor governance practices at the highest levels of the RICS organisation, prompting resignations of the president, chief executive, interim chair of the governing council, and chair of the management board, in addition to the earlier resignation of the chief operating officer. The report was labelled an "appalling advert for our profession on the world stage".
A subsequent review published in June 2022 demanded a "transformation of the institution should be carried out at pace".
Then, in 2023, its entire standards and regulation board, led by Dame Janet Paraskeva, walked out en-masse.
You really couldnt make this up.
Its now 2025 and nothing has changed. No transformation. No improvement in standards. It just gets worse:
In March 2025, RICS president Justin Sullivan "agreed to step aside" following criticism of his role as an expert witness in legal case regarding a £32.5 million moth-infested mansion. Sullivan referred himself to the body's standards and regulatory board.
Pete knows the detail of the case, as it was all about Thermafleece sheepwool insulation. Pete has warned the public about thermafleece and its moth infestation liability for several years. It's hardly a complicated thing to get your head around.
The judge in the court case said “I was unimpressed with Mr Sullivan’s grasp of the matters in issue which to a considerable degree I consider was work that had been done for him by his team, and with the detail of which he was insufficiently familiar”
“I was unimpressed by his exercise of judgement which seemed to me to be flawed in many instances and by his approach to answering questions that were put to him with one exception (which he later partly withdrew), he was unwilling to make sensible concessions and consider in an open way whether his opinion should be qualified or corrected, and instead he argued with many questions of the claimants lawyers and did not answer them or in some cases try to answer them”
So Sullivan managed to break most of the RICS professional standards rules in one case alone. This is not just yer average Assoc. RICS surveyor claiming to know about old house surveys - this is the bloody President of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.
So: the fact that RICS claim to have a royal charter, and this makes them superior to anyone else, is a farce – they’re no different to a standard Limited Liability Company.
Funny that – the RICS thinking they’re in some way special.. I wonder how a royal charter can be taken away? Surely this is a good case for such an event. Pre-eminence? I think not.
We are writing to the Privy Council to ask that they be demoted. They simply are not worthy of using some outdated 'royal' badge to claim any sort of superiority.
