Kirkham Pryer

There just isn't space enough here to list all the details of this surveyors failings. John Bevan is a junior partner in the firm of Kirkham Pryer and has been giving the firm a bad name from at least as long ago as March 2014. In July this year he came to inspect the sprayfoam insulation in my roof, to satisy a request for "an invasive inspection..." from a prospective mortgage lender. He arrived inadequately briefed, spent an amazingly short time in my loft, came down saying "it's rubbish!" and warning me not to let anybody smoke up there or the place would go up like a tinderbox. When I mentioned that getting rid of the foam might be as expensive as having it installed, he snorted, considering the foam-removers as rip-off merchants almost as bad as the installers, and offered to help me find a local builder who would only charge a few hundred pounds plus the cost of a skip,
The lender asked for more information. His blustering replies lost me the mortgage. A fool and his money...

Dreadful appalling company. The service John Bevan gave included wrong measurements and then after promising a refund sent two cheques that bounced. I personally sited my bank and was told that when the cheques were presented "there was innsufficient funds in the payees account to make payment" Telphone calls and messages were repeatedly ignored, . Do not use.

John Bevan’s professional advice was that our house was ‘poorly presented’ and the builders work ‘shoddy’ which it is neither. He suggested a whole new central heating system (why - there is nothing wrong with it? Replacing the Victorian sash windows (again perfect) and also shared private information about a neighbouring property that he advised badly on (causing lasting distress for the poor owners). Bevan decided our house was moving and despite us employing a more qualified structural engineer he refused to accept his report or discuss it with him and so as a result of this stubborn behaviour cost us our house sale. I would never use this company nor would my neighbours (who are still playing the price) ever again!

We recently had a visit from a Mr Bevan of Kirkham Pryer Chartered Surveyors, on behalf of the buyers of our property. Whilst the introduction was reasonably pleasant, this is the only positive I am able to take from our experience. Throughout his visit Mr Bevan was totally dismissive of the paperwork that we provided in order to refute his concerns, which included evidence of planning permission, drainage certificates and even building regs. He offered a lot of unnecessary personal opinion on the property and ultimately, his final report which seemed to have include his concerns, DESPITE US HAVING VALID DOCUMENTATION TO QUASH THE ISSUES, cost us the sale of our property. When I called KP to enquire about the survey, Mr Bevan stated that “oh I don’t look through the paperwork” and what we had “looked iffy” (they were the original docs from the 70s!) and promptly hung up on me.

I will be taking this further and contacting the relevant ombudsman services to escalate my complaint.

We were quite disappointed in the survey provided by Kirkham Pryer, and in the attitude of the surveyor, who was rude to the vendor of our house. The survey included many quite unpleasant and irrelevant remarks about decor, while missing key points such as the wall construction. All houses - especially older ones - have their flaws, but the tone of the survey was unnecessarily disparaging and, in places, almost offensive (without finding anything actually structurally wrong with the property). In particular, the valuation was way off, and seemed to reflect a total lack of awareness of the local housing market, being based almost entirely on the sale price of a much smaller property next door while ignoring all other factors. We won't be using them again.