01The hour at the property
The appointment is kept by somebody who works the counter, so the person who sees the property is the person who will answer the telephone about it afterwards. The visit runs through the property once at your pace, then a second time with a tape and a notebook, because the first pass is for understanding the place and the second is for recording it. You are asked what you would like the sale to achieve, and the answer is written down beside the measurements rather than kept in anybody's head.
Nothing is signed at the appointment. The figure is discussed with you while the evidence for it is still in front of both of us, and the branch would rather repeat a visit than give you a number over the telephone the same evening. Where a boundary, an extension or a shared drive raised a question, a second appointment is offered before anything is drafted.
02What is looked at, room by room
The schedule below is the order the second pass is taken in. It is the same order in every property, so that nothing is left out of one appointment because the last one was arranged differently.
| Taken | What is recorded | Where it goes afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Parking, the way in, the state of the frontage and what the property is attached to. | The opening line of the particulars, and the viewing arrangements. |
| Reception rooms | Each room at its longest and widest point, the aspect, and what heats it. | The room list, and the floor area worked from the measurements. |
| Kitchen and utility | The run of units, what is fitted and staying, and what is being taken. | The fixtures line, which a buyer's solicitor reads against the contract. |
| Bedrooms and bathrooms | Measurements, the number of each, and where a room is worked as a study. | The room list, and the description a portal entry is drawn from. |
| Outside | The garden, its aspect, outbuildings, and the boundary as you understand it. | The outside paragraph, and any question put to your solicitor early. |
| Services | The boiler, the consumer unit, the meters and how the property is drained. | The notes a surveyor's enquiries are answered from later in the run. |
03The evidence read beside the property
An inspection on its own is a description. The figure comes from setting that description against evidence, and the evidence is named to you so that you can weigh it yourself rather than take a number on trust.
| Evidence | What it is | How it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Comparable sales | Completed sales of properties of the same kind in the same district. | Read first, because a completed sale is a figure somebody actually paid. |
| Properties on the market | What a buyer looking at yours this month can look at instead. | Read as competition rather than as evidence of value. |
| The tenure | Freehold, or the term left on a lease with the service charge last paid. | Weighed where a short lease or a high charge would narrow the buyers. |
| Condition and works | What has been done to the property, and what is plainly outstanding. | Set against the comparable, which was in its own condition on its own day. |
| The branch's own file | What the counter saw of the last sales in that street or that block. | Read alongside the rest, and named as the branch's own record. |
A figure discussed at an appointment is advice on what to ask, and the sale itself settles at whatever a buyer and a seller agree.
04Working an area between metres and feet
Particulars in this part of London are read by people who think in square feet and by people who think in square metres, so both are printed. The conversion below is the one the counter uses, and it is arithmetic on a figure you type: a floor area in square metres multiplied by 10.763910417, and a room run in feet and inches taken to metres at 0.3048 metres to the foot. It is a guide only, it measures nothing on its own, and the figures on a set of particulars are the ones taken at the property with a tape.
- That area in square feet
- That run in metres
Type a floor area or a room run above and the working is printed here, line by line.
05What reaches you, and in what order
The appointment is the first of four things, and the other three follow it in writing. Each stop below is a document rather than a conversation, so there is a record of what was advised and when it was advised.
- 01At the propertyThe figure is discussed with you at the appointment, with the evidence for it named while you can see the rooms it refers to.
- 02The written confirmationWhat was advised is confirmed in writing, so that the figure you were given is not remembered differently by either of us.
- 03The terms of businessThe terms on which the branch would act are set out with it, including what is charged and when it falls due.
- 04The draft particularsIf you instruct the branch, the draft comes to you next and nothing is published before you have approved the wording.
Sheet 03 — what a set of particulars carries · The office, and how a message reaches it