Guidance Notes

Introduction

At Canham Consulting Limited [CCL], we believe that it is of benefit to our clients if they are fully informed, from the outset, in respect of certain basic information, such as:

• who will carry out the work;
• how to instruct us;
• how our fees and charges are dealt with; and
• with whom complaints or difficulties may be raised.

Clarifying these issues and keeping our clients informed of progress with their project provides the best relationship between the client and ourselves. In so doing, this enables our involvement and resources to be directed towards achieving the objective of the instructions given to us by the client.

We will assume that our Conditions of Appointment are accepted as laid out in these guidance notes, unless you raise any specific matters with us. The directors and staff of CCL are fully committed to achieving the most effective and efficient outcome and to establishing a sound and worthwhile working relationship with all our clients; this is extremely important to us, as the majority of our work comes to us through recommendation.

Who will deal with your project?

For the majority of projects, this will be obvious: you will contact and instruct a particular person within CCL. Alternatively, you may accept a recommendation from us, as a result of asking us who within the company deals with a particular type of work. In all instances, a project will be overseen by a Director, of whose name you will be advised within the Conditions of Appointment; however, there will be occasions where a project is transferred to another Director or member of staff, such as during holiday periods. Clients will be advised as soon as possible, if such a change is needed.

Giving your instructions

It is helpful if you can provide as much information as you are able to, from the outset. From this, we will be able to provide you with an accurate assessment of the scope of our involvement, the fees we will charge and the length of time it will take. Please advise us, as soon as possible, where it is necessary to revise our Conditions of Appointment.

Upon instruction, we generally issue a Conditions of Appointment letter, accompanied by these Guidance Notes. Before we carry out any work, we will require you to sign a copy and return it to us.

There may be times when our urgent involvement is required, in which case we will commence work before receipt of a signed Conditions of Appointment. However, this will be on the basis that the terms and content of this is accepted by you. Should you subsequently decide that you do not wish for us to act further for you, we will submit a fee account to you for our time charges to that point.

Our fees and charges

We will charge you on the basis of either:

• an hourly rate, the details of which will be given with the conditions of Appointment, the rates being fixed by reference to the skills, experience and qualifications of the personnel involved; or
• a fixed fee, which may be based on the value of the project and other factors, such as complexity or urgency.

The details of our basis of charging will be set out in the Conditions of Appointment.

Value Added Tax is payable on all our charges for professional work; wherever a figure is stated, this will exclude VAT.

On occasions, there will be payments to third parties, for example, for specialist drains testing, materials testing, equipment hire and suchlike. We will pass these charges onto our clients to reflect the responsibility and cost of identification, instruction and monitoring of the specialist work required.

Our payment terms are identified in the Conditions of Appointment. Payment of our fees and disbursements within these terms helps to keep our costs down and focus on our service to clients. We are members of the Credit Protection Agency and all our debtor details are passed to them for recovery of fees due. We reserve the right to charge interest on overdue accounts at Barclays Base Rate + 3%. Should court action be necessary, we will also seek recovery of our costs involved, together with interest.

There are several methods of payment available to settle our accounts:

From the outset, we will give you an estimate of the likely costs and period of time which it will take to complete your project. For certain kinds of work, we will request payment from you in advance. Where an estimate of likely charges is given to you, we will monitor our charges and advise you when that figure has been reached and give an indication of our further charges.

Projects can last for a considerable period of time and a considerable amount of work may have been undertaken before a project is completed. In such instances, we will submit interim accounts; where accounts are to be submitted at pre-defined stages, these will be identified within the Conditions of Appointment. The carrying out of further work will be dependent on payment of fee accounts submitted, or payment in advance, where such has been requested. CCL will accept no responsibility, if, due to a lack of payment, work which requires to be carried out is either delayed, or not completed.

Our hourly rates and other charges are reviewed annually in June. Dependent on the amount of our involvement remaining for a project, for which hourly rates have been quoted, that extends beyond the date of review, we may charge you at the revised rates for work beyond that date. We will advise you, if that is the case.

There may be occasions where work carried out for a client does not reach a formal conclusion, in which circumstances we will submit an account for our involvement to that point.

If you have any queries concerning any fee account submitted to you, we will be happy to explain it to you; however, it is important that you advise us within the period of the payment terms, should you have any queries.

Storage copyright and transfer

Our project files are stored in perpetuity. If you require copies of any documentation in the future, we may charge a document search fee, reproduction and postage costs.

Copyright of all drawings, calculations, reports and other documentation rests with us and your payment of our fees is a licence to use the information provided by us. It must not be reproduced, copied or otherwise disseminated without the written permission of CCL.

In instances where the transfer of documents is subsequently required to be made to the name of a third party, for example, a Certificate of Structural Adequacy for mortgage lending purposes, we will charge a fee for the transfer and any other involvement, such as a site visit and inspection.

Handling complaints

As a professional company, we do want to handle any problems or difficulties quickly and efficiently. In so doing, we will try to prevent any misunderstandings becoming a matter of serious dispute.

If you have a problem, you should in the first instance, take up the matter with the project leader. This may either in the course of a meeting, or in writing, should you prefer.

Should the matter not be resolved to your satisfaction, the complaint should be made in writing, detailing the matters in dispute, to:

Julie Hannant
Canham Consulting Limited
The Old School
School Lane
Thorpe St Andrew
Norwich NR7 0EP

Alternatively, you may wish to send your complaint via email to:

complaint@canhamconsulting.co.uk

Please ensure that your email quotes our project reference number in the subject header. This reference is detailed in the Conditions of Appointment.

Your complaint will be acknowledged within 7 working days and you will be provided with a full reply as soon as possible.

This procedure is not intended to restrict the right of any client to refer the matter to, or seek advice from a third party, if it is felt by the client that this is the most appropriate step to take.

Please note that, if comment on the work of a fellow professional is required, the codes of conduct of the professional institutions to which we belong - Institution of Civil Engineers [ICE], Institution of Structural Engineers [IStructE] and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors [RICS] - require that the original engineer or surveyor is advised of the other's involvement in the matter.

Further information

Further general information about our services can be found in our Standards of Service and Guidance Notes to Accompany Conditions of Appointment leaflets.