Dilapidations: Identifying the boundaries of liability

Author's Biography

Malcolm Hollis has been active in private practice while maintaining his personal interest in research and education. In 1991 he set up Malcolm Hollis Chartered Surveyors (now Hollis). Malcolm has been a Chartered Surveyor for nearly 50 years and has been a partner or director of professional surveying practices for more than 35 years. Malcolm has inspected an eclectic range of buildings, including a cathedral, royal palaces, military domes and a nuclear reactor as well as a wide range of commercial and residential property. He has dealt with the settlement of over £80m of dilapidation claims. He has been professor of building pathology at the University of Reading (now Henley) since 1988 and been an external examiner to universities in the UK, Italy, Hong Kong and Malaya. Malcolm has written 10 books including Surveying Buildings, Surveying for Dilapidations and Pocket Surveying Buildings and produced research and conference papers on matters including surveying, valuation, flooding, fire, and building failure and collapse. He sits on a wide range of editorial boards. Malcolm was a member of the Building Surveyors’ Divisional Council and has been a member of many working parties within the RICS, including those for surveys, valuations, commercial property and conduct. He was a member of the President’s Commission to China and was a member of the working parties that produced the RICS Guidance Notes on Residential Surveys and a member of the Executive Committee and member of Council of the Academy of Experts 2004–11. He was on the validation board for the RIBA. He has given evidence in over 60 matters within Chancery, the High Court, Technology and Construction Court, Crown Courts, County Courts and Magistrates’ Courts in both civil and criminal actions in England, Scotland, Wales, Guernsey, Holland and Belgium.