1. Parties and acceptance
These terms apply between The Survey Edit (“we”, “us”, “our”), and the surveyor or surveying practice instructing us (“you”, “your”).
Our service is provided to businesses acting in the course of their professional practice. Each instruction is subject to our written acceptance. These terms must be supplied and accepted before work begins. Any variation must be agreed in writing.
2. Scope of our service
We provide report drafting support using the inspection notes, photographs, templates, documents and instructions supplied by you.
Our service does not include inspecting the property, testing services, verifying measurements, undertaking specialist investigations or independently confirming the accuracy or completeness of your inspection findings.
Unless expressly agreed in writing, we do not provide valuations, structural calculations, legal advice or specialist advice.
Every document supplied by us is a draft for your professional review. It is not a completed, approved or independently certified survey report.
3. Information you provide
You are responsible for supplying accurate, complete and legible information, including all relevant defects, inspection limitations, property details and instructions.
You must have the necessary authority to share the materials provided to us and to authorise their use for drafting.
We may request clarification where information is unclear or inconsistent. Missing evidence must not be treated as confirmation that an element is satisfactory. You remain responsible for resolving all outstanding questions before issuing the report.
4. Mandatory review and sign-off
You must thoroughly review, check and approve every draft against your own inspection findings and supporting evidence.
Your review must cover all factual statements, descriptions, omissions, conclusions, recommendations, condition ratings, regulatory references, limitations and advice.
No draft, extract, paragraph, summary or other material supplied by us may be delivered, forwarded or otherwise made available to your client, in part or in full, until the responsible surveyor has checked it and formally signed off the version being released.
You must correct any inaccuracies, remove unsupported statements and add any findings or advice necessary to produce an appropriate final report.
Approval must be an active professional review. Payment, receipt of the draft or the passage of time does not constitute sign-off.
You must retain a dated record identifying the approving surveyor and the approved version. Any subsequent changes must be checked and approved before release.
5. Responsibility for the issued report
You remain the inspecting and reporting surveyor. You retain responsibility for your inspection, professional judgement, conclusions and the report issued under your name or practice.
Using our drafting service does not transfer your obligations to your client, professional body, insurer or any other party to us.
You are responsible for ensuring that the final report complies with the requirements applicable to your instruction, including relevant professional standards and your own terms of engagement.
You must maintain appropriate professional indemnity insurance and confirm that your use of external drafting support complies with your policy and professional obligations.
6. Client contact and reliance
Our contractual relationship is with you. We do not act as the appointed surveyor for your client and do not approve reports for issue to them.
We will not contact your client, estate agent, referrer or other third party without your express written instruction.
Our drafts are supplied exclusively for your professional review. They are not intended for independent reliance by purchasers, lenders or other third parties.
7. Fees, delivery and amendments
The fee, agreed scope, payment arrangements and target delivery date will be confirmed for each instruction.
Delivery periods begin once we have received the complete information required and any agreed advance payment. Where clarification or further evidence is needed, we will notify you of any resulting change to the delivery date.
A delivery deadline does not remove your obligation to review and sign off the report.
We will correct drafting errors attributable to our work without additional charge. Additional work arising from new evidence, changed instructions or an expanded scope may attract an additional fee, agreed before that work begins.
If you cancel an instruction, you must pay for work reasonably completed up to cancellation. Any unearned advance payment will be refunded.
8. Liability
We will provide our drafting service with reasonable care and skill. We do not warrant that a draft is ready for client issue without your review, correction and approval.
To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for loss arising from inaccurate or incomplete information supplied by you, matters outside our agreed scope, alterations made by others, or the release or use of our work without the review and sign-off required by these terms.
These exclusions apply only to the extent that the relevant loss was caused by those circumstances. They do not exclude liability for our own breach or negligence where exclusion would be unlawful or unreasonable.
Subject to the exceptions below and applicable law, our total aggregate liability arising from an individual instruction, whether in contract, negligence or otherwise, shall not exceed £500,000.
Nothing in these terms excludes or restricts liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or restricted.
Your approval of a draft does not extinguish any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.
9. Confidentiality and personal data
We will treat your instructions, inspection materials and business information as confidential, except where disclosure is authorised by you, necessary to provide the agreed service, or required by law.
Any personnel or service providers authorised to handle confidential information must be subject to appropriate confidentiality obligations.
Both parties must comply with applicable data protection law. Where we process personal data on your behalf, the necessary data processing agreement must be in place before that processing begins.
10. Use of drafted material
Once the agreed fee has been paid, you may edit and incorporate the commissioned drafting into the report for the relevant property and issue it following your professional approval.
Your original notes, photographs and templates remain yours or those of their respective owners. Our pre-existing templates, methods and general drafting resources remain ours.
11. Concerns and disputes
Please notify us promptly of any concern about our work, identifying the relevant instruction and wording. We will investigate and seek to resolve the matter reasonably.
Both parties will attempt to resolve disputes through discussion before commencing proceedings. This does not prevent either party from seeking urgent relief or protecting a legal time limit.
12. Governing law
These terms and any dispute arising from them are governed by the law of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.