How to get terms of engagement signed before a survey inspection

To get terms of engagement signed before a home survey inspection, send them the day the buyer accepts the fee, matched to that property and that level of service, and treat the unsigned ones as a list that somebody owns every morning. The RICS Home Survey Standard says the terms should be issued and returned before the inspection, and must be agreed before the service is delivered. The job is the days afterwards, when the signature has not come back and the inspection is in the diary.

Which surveys this applies to

From the moment the quote is accepted the practice has an instruction it cannot yet act on. This guide covers home surveys under the Home Survey Standard, which is mandatory for RICS members and regulated firms across the UK, with variations for the Home Report in Scotland.

The steps, and who does each today

1. Check for a conflict. The Standard requires the member to declare any potential conflict and how it is managed. A coordinator looks up the names and the address; a surveyor decides whether there is a conflict and whether to act.

2. Prepare the terms for this instruction. The client must receive an up-to-date document matched to the specific instruction. For a level one or two survey of a straightforward property that is likely to be your standard document, amended for the property type, the intended use and anything the client has asked for. For older, complex or neglected properties, and for level three, the Standard asks for careful thought about whether a variation is needed. A survey administrator fills in the standard document; a surveyor writes any variation and explains it to the client.

3. Check the terms cover the minimum. Appendix D of the Standard lists what all terms must address. It includes the client's and the member's details, the property address, the service and any additional services, the intended use of the property, the likely inspection date and when the report is expected, the report's format, the agreed fee with VAT, referral fees and conflicts, payment arrangements, cancellation rights, any health and safety restrictions on the day, evidence that the client has accepted, the complaints procedure, and the statements that RICS may monitor the firm's files and that fees paid in advance are not client money. The terms must also point out that the service is not an asbestos inspection.

4. Send for signature. By email for electronic signature, from your survey software if it can.

5. Chase. The administrator looks at who has not signed, when there is time to look.

6. Decide what happens to an inspection with no terms. The afternoon before, someone finds the terms still out. The inspection moves, or the surveyor loses a half day.

The cancellation period

Many buyers instruct by email or online. The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, which apply across the UK, give a consumer who makes a contract at a distance or away from the trader's premises a right to cancel, and for a service the period ends 14 days after the contract is made, or later if the buyer was not told of the right. Regulation 36 says the trader must not begin the service inside that period unless the consumer has made an express request. A buyer in a hurry will not wait a fortnight, so that request has to come back with the signature. The Standard tells firms to take legal advice on their engagement documents, and how your terms deal with this is for you and your adviser.

Which steps an AI worker can take on

The paperwork and the chasing are work for an AI worker, with a written job and a named person who checks what it does. It can collect the client's details and prepare the conflict check for a surveyor to decide. It can fill in your standard terms for the instruction, check them against the Standard's list and mark anything missing or any case for a variation. It can send the terms through the route your survey software's maker publishes and remind the client at the intervals you choose. Each morning it can give the coordinator one list: inspections in the next few days whose terms are not back. It files the signed copy against the job as the evidence of acceptance the Standard asks for.

The other roles around an inspection are on our page for surveyors, and the steps before this one are in from quote request to booked inspection.

What waits for a surveyor, and why

The surveyor decides whether a conflict exists and whether to accept the instruction, because RICS puts the declaration, and how the conflict is managed, on the member. The surveyor also writes any variation to the standard terms and has the conversation that explains it, and answers any question from the client about what the survey will or will not find. Whether an inspection goes ahead without signed terms is never the agent's call: it reports, and the surveyor or the coordinator decides. The phone call to a buyer who has ignored three emails is a person's.

What to have ready before you start

• Your standard terms for each level, checked once against appendix D and by your legal adviser.

• The property types that always go to a surveyor for a variation.

• Your reminder wording, and how many reminders before a person calls.

• Your rule for an inspection with no terms: how many working days before the visit it is flagged, and who decides.

• Where the signed copy is filed.

What this chasing does to the number of instructions a coordinator can hold is in how to scale a surveying practice without hiring.

The worker would send terms on the day of instruction, chase them until they are back and list each morning the inspections still at risk; a surveyor or the coordinator would decide whether any of them goes ahead. Unsigned terms should not be news on the morning of an inspection. Talk to our agent.