Terms of engagement, and the scope nobody wrote down
The fee was agreed on a phone call and the work has quietly doubled. Neither side did anything wrong, and both are now annoyed.
QScope Team · 22 June 2026 · 4 min read
Terms of engagement do two things: they say what you will do, and they say what you will be paid. The second gets negotiated carefully and the first is often a sentence.
Almost every fee dispute is really a scope dispute. The client believed something was included; the surveyor believed it was not; neither wrote it down.
What belongs in the scope
- Which stages. Post-contract only, or cost planning as well.
- How many valuations, and what happens if the programme extends.
- Variations: valuing them, or also negotiating and settling them.
- Final account: preparing, agreeing, or both.
- Meetings: how many, and whether attendance is included.
- Claims: almost always excluded, and worth saying so explicitly.
The overrun problem
A fee agreed for a twelve-month contract that runs to twenty-two months has been halved in real terms. The surveyor is still valuing monthly, still attending meetings, still doing the work.
A clause stating that the fee is based on a stated contract period, with a monthly rate for any extension, resolves this before it becomes a conversation. Without it, the surveyor either absorbs it or asks for more money in circumstances where the client is already unhappy about the delay.
Percentage or lump sum
A percentage of construction cost rises with variations, which reflects the extra work reasonably well, and can look uncomfortable when the client is already paying more than they planned.
A lump sum gives the client certainty and puts the overrun risk on the surveyor. Either works, provided the basis and the mechanism for change are stated.
Professional obligations
RICS members are required to have written terms of engagement in place before starting work, together with complaints handling arrangements and adequate professional indemnity cover. That requirement exists because the profession learned the same lesson repeatedly.
The five-minute version
If a full appointment document is disproportionate for a small job, a one-page letter still works: what you will do, what you will not do, the fee, the basis, what happens if the programme extends, and your complaints procedure.
Signed before starting. Not after the first invoice is queried.
QScope keeps every project under your practice name and letterhead, with a record of what was issued and when.