In our first episode Alistair tells us how to build a reputation and what skills are needed to be an efficient Building Owner surveyor. He also shares some tips on how to start a party wall practice and why you shouldn’t do it alone too early.
You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
Philippe: Hello everyone! Today we’ve got Alistair Redler with us from Delva Patman, Redler who is the man when it comes to party wall surveying and he has been in the business for how long now, Alistair?
Alistair: Well this from 23 years, since starting work probably about 28.
Philippe: 28? How did you?– so tell me– from the start how did you get into surveying.
Alistair: By accident, almost! I left school with lousy A levels, did 3 years doing manual labor work and a cousin of mine who’s a structural engineer and now senior partner of a large firm in the South recommended that I spend some time with him seeing what engineers did. And having decided that surveying looked more interesting than engineering, I went into it. I decided that was a good call–it was all I could do. So basically, just, it was a good lifestyle rather than a choice.
Philippe: Right, so how did you, from there, go into party wall matters? Did you start straight away with just focusing on party walls or was it just general surveying and then?
Alistair: No, ah, sort of. A colleague; and there was a couple lectures on party walls that I thought were interesting. It was interesting that there was a specialization that was relatively straightforward and at that time, very boutique applying to only in London. And I quite liked the idea of it. As I got into surveying and working, I found I liked the professional end of surveying better than construction and design. So I got into dilapidation surveys, and party walls and to a certain extent repair works rather than design works; very much my field, I am not a designer at all. So, the party wall work, and I used to get as I could from the firm I was working in. And eventually, in ’92, I thought I’d apply to a firm that was more specialist and applied to a few firms including Delva Patman and got the job. So, I wanted to be more specialist and do rights of light as well so it was a deliberate attempt to get into this field.
Alistair: Delva being extremely experienced and very very capable.
Philippe: And then, and then, from there on, how do you– how do you actually start building your own practice? Because it’s –, it’s like, with my background as a lawyer you work in a law firm with a partner that hands you the work, and without questioning it. But you don’t really have time to go in and seek your own instructions, your own clients. So how did you go from, from working for Delva into slowly getting your own client base?
Alistair: I think you do it just by working, actually. I think it’s about personality, but I think it’s about working. I have -we, we, as a practice do almost no marketing. No active marketing, no classic marketing. No cold calls, no taking people to lunch twice a week, no -you know–, no marketing budget effectively. We manage to do the job, when we do the job, we think very well; we do it our way. We do it very well. That, backed up with doing lectures and articles, and just helping people out. It’s amazing, that one of the best ways of getting a name around is for your rivals to speak well of you; in party wall world particularly. And other negotiating fields like dilapidation and so on, because if your rivals speak well of you, not only do they want to negotiate with you, because well it may not be the easiest ride, it will be a fair and honest one. But, the clients can’t also go to the same people, there’s a conflict, so you get the contacts that way as well. So basically you’re doing the job best you can.
Philippe: So that “best you can”, is that just going above and beyond what
