Professional Practice: Regulation, Engagements and Liability
This domain tests whether you know who may lawfully practise as an estate surveyor and valuer in Nigeria, on what terms engagements are created, and where liability sits.
The statutory frame
The Estate Surveyors and Valuers (Registration, etc.) Act 1975 (Cap E13, LFN 2004) created ESVARBON, which registers individuals and firms and criminalises practice or use of the protected titles without registration. NIESV, founded in 1969, is the professional body that sets standards and admits Fellows, Associates (ANIVS) and Probationers. A practice should not hold itself out as estate surveyors unless its principals and the firm are registered.
Engagement discipline
Work begins with a written engagement: instructions, purpose, basis of value, property, fee, timetable, limitations and who may rely on the report. Fees follow the Institution's scale and are agreed in advance. A valuation fee may not be contingent on the value reported or on a transaction completing, because that destroys independence. Staff may be supervised, but the registered surveyor who signs must be competent to take responsibility for the whole of the work.
Worked example
A bank instructs your firm to value a property for mortgage purposes. Your managing partner also acts for the vendor and will earn agency commission on the sale. Correct handling: disclose the conflict in writing at once; decline the valuation instruction unless both parties give informed consent and safeguards are in place (separate fee notes, no sharing of the valuation figure, no pressure on the valuer). Otherwise independence and the bank's reliance are compromised.
Traps
Using 'estate agent' when the work is valuation and management; signing a report you did not supervise; agreeing percentage fees with no written terms; accepting work beyond your competence (plant, going concerns) without expert input.