Experience
This page makes a more logical read going from bottom to top…
2020 – Present – Director – Simon Hollis Chartered Surveyors – Sheffield
I thought it was about time I acted on the conclusions drawn from my Master's dissertation and tried to provide people, or more specifically people that are looking to buy or already own traditionally constructed buildings with better advice than it seemed was currently being provided and the last two and a half years of self-employment have flown by.
After working for other people for much of the last twenty years, it's great to now be able to do what I want to do, how I want to do it. I can take the time to make a proper job of everything and provide my clients with as much relevant information as possible, whether they are buying a 21-bedroom country home or a two up two down terrace (largest and smallest instructions to date).
You can find some more information on what I have been up to on my blog.
2023 - Present – Senior Lecturer in Building Surveying – Sheffield Hallam University – Sheffield
An opportunity arose to try my hand at something new and never one to sit still for long, I took on the role of part-time (two days a week) lecturer in Building Surveying at Sheffield Hallam University. I lecture on Building Pathology, Building Surveying, Building Surveying Professional Studies, Surveying of Commercial Property, Advanced Building Surveying and Building Conservation Practice modules as well as supervising undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations.
2021 - 2023 – Partner – Heritage House Surveys LLP – England, Scotland and Wales
Working with Garry, Pete, David and Richard across England and Wales providing a mix of pre-purchase advice and consultancy services to clients purchasing/owning traditionally constructed properties. Instructions ranged from timber-framed houses and barns to post-medieval hall houses, right through the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian periods. Not all pretty, but nearly always complicated by virtue of the inappropriate/illegal works that had been undertaken in modern times.
2019 – 2021 – Senior Building Surveyor – South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue – Sheffield
Looking for something closer to home, and more related to building surveying, I accepted a job at South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue as a Senior Building Surveyor. With two other surveyors, I managed the specialist estate of fire stations, offices and training buildings across South Yorkshire. There was plenty of work to get stuck into here including initial condition surveys, preparing budgets and bidding for funding, a sizable programme of latent defect work, decarbonisation strategies and Salix funding, managing the estates business rates liabilities, leases, sub-tenants and dealing with planning and building control matters.
2018 – 2019 – Development Surveyor – Commercial Estates Group (CEG) – Kirkstall, Leeds
After being made redundant by SIG, I went to work for CEG, a Swedish property fund as a Development Surveyor. This was the first time in my career that I had no involvement with buildings, just spreadsheets and planning documents and I quickly realised I wanted to be back working with tangible assets.
2015 – 2018 – Property Transactions Surveyor – SIG (Sheffield Insulation Group) Plc – Sheffield
In 2015, I transitioned from my predominantly residential background into the commercial sector. Initially, I worked as an Acquisitions Surveyor working all over England, Scotland and Wales acquiring different types of commercial property for the various SIG brands. I then picked up disposal work for the SIG Group and more latterly got involved with fit-out schemes, planning, corporate M&A work, and reducing holding costs. I worked with a superb team of people, full of characters and I’m glad we still meet up for curry and beer regularly. Like most of the non-operational departments, the property team became the victim of outsourcing and one by one, the team was no more.
2012 - 2015 – Surveyor – Lambert Smith Hampton – Leeds and Sheffield
In November 2012 I started working as a Graduate Surveyor in the Northern Property Management Team, which then absorbed the work from the Midlands Property Management Team when they all departed. I managed around 2,200 units in developments from six to four hundred plus units from Carlisle down to Coventry and Lincoln across to Swansea. Certainly, one of the most relentless, thankless jobs I have done. With an ever-dwindling team, the job became completely untenable, I had seven thousand plus unread emails in my inbox when I left.
2011 – 2012 – Branch Manager – Blundells Countrywide – Nether Green, Sheffield
As I was being made redundant from Scanlans, in Sheffield, Blundells, Spencers and Mike Jolley Estates were in the process of being acquired by Countrywide Plc. Some kind words from my good friend William got me a foot in the door. When the three businesses were acquired a restructure was then on the cards – I aimed high and applied for a job managing the Nether Green lettings branch. Working for a Plc brought with it a certain amount of number crunching, targets for this, that and the other and regular reporting up the tree which was all new to me. My colleague Sarah and I ran a little powerhouse of a branch and seemed to be able to run our own separate business away from the other branches as long as we did the numbers, which we did every month bar one. The freedom to do this was thoroughly enjoyable, although the hours were very long. Towards the end of 2012, I was approached by Lambert Smith Hampton about a Graduate Surveyor job in their property management department in Leeds. A difficult decision then had to be made – give up the branch we had built up and the healthy package on offer to go back to a four-hour-a-day commute and a graduate wage, but possibly my last chance to try and get more APC experience and to become a chartered surveyor.
2010 – 2011 – Graduate Surveyor – Scanlan's Consultant Surveyors LLP – Horsforth, North Leeds
This was my first job as a Graduate Surveyor. The writing was almost on the wall before I stepped foot in the office on my first day - the company had folded the week before I joined and set up again with a tweaked name. Unfortunately, this meant that the business lost most of its panel work and things were difficult. I predominantly undertook LPA (Law of Property Act) receivership work with some property management work to fill the gaps. The LPA work was an eye-opener as to what the financial institutions were willing to lend on, the amount of mortgage fraud taking place and the amount of time and money it took to get to a point where the lender could crystalise their loss. The property management work mainly centred around residential and mixed-use assets and the implementation of works following fire risk assessments. Both of these roles took me all over the country, at one point doing two days a week in Leeds, and a day a week in Birmingham, Cardiff and Manchester. How I managed this whilst revising for my APC, I still don’t know. In January after I joined, I was made redundant as there was no work for me to do. This was hard to come to terms with from a work point of view, I think financially, I was better off as I spent most of my £17,000 salary commuting from Sheffield to Horsforth.
2008 – 2010 – Lettings – Spencer’s Surveyors Limited – Sheffield
In July 2008, I met Jim and Anne Spencer and Geoff Ackroyd for a job interview at Spencers on Ecclesall Road. I worked in the lettings side of the business where we managed a portfolio broadly split into student and professional lets for mainly local landlords. We got along great with each other whilst trying to overcome the unbelievable situations the tenants seemed to get both themselves and their landlord's houses into. It was during this period that the lettings market really started to take off, and with it, lots of additional legislation to keep both ourselves and our landlords on top of. I still recall what Jim wrote in my leaving card – to let him know when I made my first million. Still waiting Jim, I’ll keep you posted when it happens…
2006 – 2008 – General Factotum – Blundells Property Services – Sheffield
Working at Blundells was certainly different from my previous job at SPS. Although I was more of a cog in a machine, the machine was generally well-oiled and things moved fast. I worked across South Yorkshire and Derbyshire and gained experience working across most sectors of the business. I worked on several new home sites, on the evening viewings line, in sales, lettings, Fine and Country, and the Property Management Centre, as a Lettings Inspector and accompanied viewing representative. This quickly turned into a seven-day-a-week job for me with more hours on the evening viewings line, until the recession hit and once again, my hours were cut back to just weekends.
2005 – 2006 – Estate Agent – SPS (Solicitors Property Shop) – Sheffield
This was my first job in the property industry, and I look back on most of my time at SPS fondly. SPS was a partnership between five local firms of solicitors – Wrigleys, Graysons, Bell and Buxton, Benson Clegg and Rosalind Watchorn operating in partnership under the ESPC umbrella, dealing with predominantly deceased estates around the Sheffield area. I worked in the office full time, six days a week and attended university lectures around this. Most of the time, there were two of us managing the workload which facilitated a broad experience in all areas of the business including accompanied viewings, sales negotiation, sales progression, advertising and pre and post-completion matters. Change was afoot, a new ‘hot shot’ valuer was brought in who came with his own staff and my hours were cut back to 1 day a week. With a house purchase and a sizable mortgage imminent, more hours were needed.