Is an estate agent/property adviser considered a sub-consultant?

[Peter West]

Dear All

Have received an interesting question. A client has asked us to provide a service, part of which involves picking a piece of land. For this we will have to use an estate agent who will show us a selection of lands, and then we pay them and incorporate the cost into our fee to the client.

Would you think this 3rd party should be subject to any controls we have for Sub-consultants, even though they are offering a limited small service?

[AndyN]

Apart from some other terminology used to describe (real) estate agents, it sounds like a supplier relationship to me, Peter!

And, yes, I would expect that you'd take steps to evaluate the supplier's service(s) - it sounds as if the 'quality' of the advice they provide would have some significant affect on your clients and, in turn, their perception of your services!

[Peter West]

It certainly would. We have a register of approved SCs, but the effort to get them on this would be more than the work they would be doing for us. I am thinking their membership to an Ombudsmen scheme etc may satisfy the need to ensure quality service with a few choice additional questions added on.

It has me stumped for today. I need to sleep on it. Please let the opinions flow and if anyone has a practical example where they have been in a similar position, all the better.

[AndyN]

I see no reason why you can't categorize them differently and use some sort of criteria to qualify them. I'm struggling to remember what an estate agent's professional affiliations are (or if they are worth anything!) since I haven't bought or sold a house in the UK for quite a few years!

Now, having said that, you've probably got some history of selection against some kind of criteria, however informal, and records of the results of their work, wrt the customers' requirements. What does that tell us? You did a good job of selecting and monitoring?

Can you formalize this situation and write that into your system?