Committees ask for a valuation and get quoted by two different professions. The confusion is understandable. The two roles overlap at one point and diverge everywhere else.
The short answer
Quantity surveyors work out what it costs to build something. Valuers work out what a property is worth on the market. For most body corporate purposes you need the first, because the statutory documents a scheme has to hold are about cost, not market value.
Where a body corporate needs a quantity surveyor
- Insurance replacement valuations. What it would cost to rebuild the scheme, including demolition, professional fees and escalation. Market value is irrelevant to this figure and using it will leave a scheme underinsured.
- Sinking fund forecasts. Projecting replacement costs for common property assets across the forecast period.
- Depreciation schedules. Establishing construction cost so the capital works allowance can be calculated.
Where a valuer is the right call
- establishing a sale or purchase price for a lot
- setting rental levels on a lease
- mortgage and lending valuations
- property settlements, deceased estates and family law matters
- asset accounting and financial reporting at market value
Why the distinction costs money when it goes wrong
Underinsurance is the common failure. A scheme that insures for market value rather than replacement cost can find, after a fire, that the sum insured does not cover rebuilding. Land value is baked into a market figure and land does not burn down. Demolition, debris removal, professional fees and cost escalation across a multi year rebuild are not in a market valuation at all.
The reverse error is rarer but happens. A committee commissions a quantity surveyor when what it needed was a market appraisal for a sale.
Qualifications
Both professions require a tertiary degree. Quantity surveyors are typically members of the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors, which is the credential to look for on a report a scheme is going to rely on. Seymour Consultants has over 25 years of experience and its quantity surveyors are AIQS members.
For quantity surveying work across Queensland and northern New South Wales, call 07 5573 4011.
