Surveyor expelled from RICS for ‘dishonesty and lack of integrity’

A ‘student’ member of RICS has been ejected from the organisation following a complaint from two clients after he claimed to be a fully qualified member of the organisation.

Edward Webb (main image, inset), who told the clients he was a fully qualified and paid-up member of RICS when he was not, has lost his appeal against being expelled from RICS and was originally asked to pay costs of nearly £32,000 but this has been reduced to £20,000.

This follows a full investigation into Webb’s activities and that of his firm by a RICS tribunal that lasted a week.

In January it was found that he had acted dishonestly in not informing two clients for whom he worked that he was not fully qualified as a RICS surveyor and had failed to act with integrity by displaying the RICS logo on his website when he was not entitled to do so.

Cost report

The clients involved, Penny Lane-Ridyard and her daughter Sandra Lane, who run a cattery but had also hoped to develop the site in question, complained about his work after they asked him to complete a retrospective cost report.

This had been commissioned from Webb in 2018 after a building company they had transferred land to in order to develop a number of plots into housing went bust.

They then needed to have an estimate of the building work completed so that the land could be transferred back to them.

In respect to this report, which was based on ‘outdated costs’ the Tribunal said, RICS considers Webb to have “failed to carry out his professional work with due skill, care and diligence”.

Webb denied the original allegations and appealed the January decision, but a further Tribunal decision has now rejected his appeal.

Read the Tribunal’s decision in full and the subsequent appeal.

Read more about RICS members who have been expelled.