As a recently appointed member of the Residential Property Surveyors Association (RPSA) Council and I thought I have better take an opportunity to explain who they are what they do.
Most people recognize the RICS as being the main body who represent and accredit surveyors. Most people when they think of surveyors think of Residential Buildings Surveyors like myself because this is the part of the profession that most people will come in to contact with. Reasonably then most people assume Residential Building Surveyors play a major role in the organization and it is run with our needs in mind. The problem is that this is not true.
A recent report published by the RICS showed that only about a third of members were involved in the property industry. Although there was not data provided best guesses suggest that the proportion of that third that actually work with residential property, as opposed to commercial, is be less then 50%. This means that possibly as much 85% of the 75,323 members are made up by other areas of the profession. These could be anything as diverse as Quantity Surveyors, Management Consultants through to Antique Valuers.
Inevitably with such a large and diverse organization the voice of a small proportion can get lost, particularly when it is not at the glamorous end of the spectrum.
At the RPSA we think Residential Surveying is important, it certainly is to our members and their clients so it is important that the Surveyors have an organization run with their needs in mind.
The RPSA is committed to promoting, protecting and supporting our members which not only benefits our members but also their clients. We feel that everyone benefits from having access to high standard Survey, provided by a qualified and experienced surveyors and for this to happen those surveyors need to have an organization with their needs in mind.