Statement of Agreed Facts and Comparable Evidence
2 September 2025(2025 Sep) – On referral and in the process of agreeing a Statement of Agreed Facts, it appears – in my experience – to be taken for granted that the SOAF will contain proforma of so-called comparable evidence even if neither party’s surveyor has had any involvement with the evidence premises. And not only reliance on hearsay but also no attempt to provide copy leases to complement.
Hearsay evidence may be admissible, but case law has examples where the court has placed no weight on an expert witness evidence because copy leases were not provided so the court did not know whether there was anything onerous in them that would affect the rents.
It’s not uncommon for someone signing a proforma to omit material information and/or not having seen the lease. Yet reliance on such possibly mis-information is rife. Why some third parties are accommodating is beyond me. Despite the information on the Arbrix website, I conclude a difference between the theory and in practice.
Paying lip service to the RICS PS is one thing, quite another to purport to be an expert witness when not up to the task.
The level of competence to be an EW exceeds that of a chartered surveyor. In counter-submission, the way to sort the wheat from the chaff and destroy a pretend expert witness’s credibility is to highlight one or more of the top 5 mistakes that EWs make. I’m not going to tell you what they are because if we’re up against one another and you make a mistake, then you’ll be first to read what I’ll be telling the third party.
It’s ok for an EW to advocate for the methodology, but not for the case itself. When acting for a tenant who doesn’t care about the rules provided the result is as the tenant wants, I suggest that if you value your self-respect, then declining the instruction wouid be best.
The bottom line is the answer to which is more important? The fee or professional integrity.
If you don’t want to have to choose, then don’t cut corners because for rent reviews, as in most things in life, that’s where the angles are.
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