The short answer
Yes — if an adjoining owner’s surveyor’s hourly rate or time looks excessive, the building owner’s surveyor should ask for a proper explanation. A fee must be reasonable, and a rate written on a fee proposal does not make it automatically recoverable.
Why it matters
A reasonable rate reflects the surveyor’s experience, qualification and specialist knowledge, the complexity and risk, the location and local market, proportionate overheads, and the work genuinely necessary. Chartered status and seniority may justify a higher rate, but not unlimited time or inefficient working — a high rate must be matched by skill, efficiency and useful output. A practical test is to benchmark against local rates and the surveyor’s own fixed fees: if a surveyor charges £750 for work that normally takes about six hours, the effective rate is around £125 per hour. Salary and overheads also help — a surveyor earning around £60,000 a year might reasonably need to generate two-and-a-half to three times salary to cover overheads and profit, producing an indicative rate of roughly £120 to £140 per hour. The figures vary, but the calculation should make commercial sense.
What to do now
- Where a fee looks high, ask for the hourly rate, a time breakdown, task descriptions, relevant outputs and an explanation of why the work was required.
- Benchmark the rate against local norms and the surveyor’s own fixed-fee work.
- Aim to ensure the building owner pays reasonable expenses, not poorly evidenced charges.
Common mistakes
- Treating a quoted hourly rate as automatically recoverable.
- Assuming seniority justifies unlimited time.
- Paying without a breakdown or justification.
When to call Coburns
If an adjoining owner’s surveyor’s rate looks high, send us the proposal and we will benchmark it and request a proper breakdown.