The firm said that this position was designed to grow business capacity, maintain growing client demand and bring talent into the sector.
The RPAs have graduated from the Countrywide’s Surveyor Training Academy, which includes an all-encompassing programme on property inspection, building pathology and defect identification.
All RPAs have a property-related background and are given a full surveyor equipment pack and access to bespoke software solution that allows them to produce in-depth process driven side notes, intelligent dynamic questions, unlimited high-definition photos and videos, full audit log and dynamic case triage.
They have been active for the past four months and CSS is currently recruiting more trainees to the scheme.
Countrywide ‘thinking outside the box’
Matthew Cumber (pictured), managing director of CSS, said: “As a business who is consistently thinking outside the box, we are excited to become the first residential surveying firm to adopt this model and introduce a whole new breed of surveyors into an industry which has been crying out for fresh talent.
“This was a role created to enhance our capacity and speed of service. A robust training process remains in place for our RPAs but they come with the ability to hit the ground running as we don’t have to wait for a full RICS assessment.”
He added that working with intelligent data capture and decisioning software, along with improved risk profiling through a decisioning engine coupled with risk perils data, permitted lenders to adopt variable loan to value (LTV) risk profile across a range of service offerings.
Cumber said that with the valuation and lender report products by a local RICS registered valuer, there was “no risk attached to the client.”
“After a successful pilot, we are looking to further bolster our RPA team and we will continue exploring new ways to successfully address the many challenges facing the surveying sector and extend our recruitment campaign in the process,” he noted.
