SayPro The Quantity Surveyor

Description

The Quantity Surveyor What is a Quantity Surveyor? Quantity surveyors are the financial consultants of the construction industry whose training and experience qualify them to advise on cost and contractual arrangements and to prepare contract documents.  They act in liaison with architects, consulting engineers and contractors to safeguard the client’s interests.  They are independent experts who operate in a specialised are of the construction industry. The title “Quantity Surveyor” was reserved under the Quantity Surveyors’ Act of 1970 for exclusive use by those who had obtained the necessary qualifications and experience prescribed under the Act.  In terms of it, such persons must register with the South African Council for Quantity Surveyors before they may offer their service as consultants to the public. Quantity surveyors must comply with a strict code of professional conduct which includes responsibility to their employers or clients and to their profession, having full regard to the public interest, conducting themselves so as to uphold the dignity and reputation of the profession and discharging their duties to their employers and clients in an efficient and competent manner with complete fidelity and without undue delay. History of Quantity Surveying Quantity surveying started in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In those early days the quantity surveyor acted for the master tradesmen, measuring the work after completion and frequently submitting partisan Final Accounts to the building owner.  As a direct result of these activities, it increasingly became the practice of building owners to have work executed under contract and to call for tenders before any work was undertaken. A procedure therefore developed whereby building owners would approach an architect to design a building.  Drawings and specifications were distributed to selected master builders, who would then submit tenders for the total price rather than a collection of prices from master tradesmen. The task of arriving at an accurate estimate of cost or tender can be carried out in only one way:  That of measuring the quantities of all materials and labour necessary to complete the work, i.e. preparing bills of quantities.  As each builder had to prepare his own bills of quantities for each project, they realised that it would be more economical for them as a group to employ one surveyor to measure quantities for them all.  They would thus share the cost of the surveyor, obtain an identical Bill of Quantities, which ensured that they would all be tendering on the same basis. The building owner subsequently realised that it would be to his personal advantage to appoint and pay the fees of the quantity surveyor.  That is how the independent professional quantity surveyor gained consultant status. Quantity surveyors are paid according to a recommended scale of fees, set out in the Tariff of Professional Charges published by the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors. Fees are generally based on a percentage of the value of the work handled, varying in accordance with the type of work done or the scope of services rendered.