To the London property podcast. Today we’re in conversation with Gary Barlow who is a partner with the project management and building consultant team at levy real estate LLP. Gary’s got over 15 years experience as a chartered surveyor is a keen cyclist and if you can’t find him on a building site, you will find him going up mountains on his bike. I started way back when I was at University of Nottingham Trent buildings angry. I then started working for a company called FFT who are social housing biassed company. So I cut my teeth in social housing, training around all of Camden’s. So anything since street properties, doing the home improvements on their street properties, which was interesting to learn a hell of a lot on that was the first housing psi in the country. And I learned a lot of that information on that. I’m doing levy. And I’ve been here for 10 years now for Yeah, absolutely loving it. I’ll join levy as buildings were were more often got to support level it for you. So basically, when you when you started your training effectively you will learning from the big landlords what their problems are? Yeah, exactly, I think from from two elements really, when we’re dealing with the social housing landlord, and who were Camden. Sorry, I keep saying Camden because I’m working with Canada, the moment they were his LinkedIn. I was dealing with the the psi who we’re trying to get everything together and make everything work with the street properties. And then I was also working with with very closely with the contractor delivering work, being a pf is big sort of consortium of organisations trying to get this huge development to work on lots of street properties. And then obviously, on the ground level, we’re trying to work with the residents. And the residents work from a family of maybe eight or nine, all the way through to single occupiers. And you meet all walks of life in those sorts of properties. And most interesting one for memory was a brother and sister who owned he lived in a street property and townhouse that was converted, his dad bought it brand new, and was a Victorian townhouse, his dad bought it brand new, he then sold it to the local authority in sort of 60s, who converts it into flats, and then gave them the bottom flat and rented out the top flat. But it was never, there was never an individual front door. So you just walk between the flats, which was really quite interesting, obviously. So that came to an end a few years later, when they realise obviously security issues and whatnot, the building have pretty much remained empty on top floor since that point. And this this brother and sister were living in there he was 101. And she was 103. They lived there all their lives. Exactly. So obviously the the psi would go right come on, we’ve got to go in, we’ve got to give them hot water and central heating and bobs and as a whole fire. If you decant them and put them into a new new property, you’re gonna kill them. So they’re all their lives. Look, let’s just go in Softly, softly. By the time, you know, we’ll give them what they want to make their lives comfortable by the time we come to the end of our programme in five years time. Probability is that they won’t be an issue. Yeah, nice way. So that’s what we did, we sort of gave them a little bit of comfort, then move into the into the programmes, it’s just dealing with, with people as well as property. It’s, it’s, that’s, that’s what I enjoy, I think is the people’s are proxies, I think, Well, I think that’s the that’s actually really key point because people are so different. And actually, no two days in property are the same, that you’ve got to have that in that kind of intuition of how to minimise that the inevitable disagreements that people will have with the plan, or with the direction versus what they want and you know, trying to get them to see the light. So it is a really, it is a cat it is a skill. So having having the kind of Chartered surveyor background is is is only part of the equation, I think, a very small part of it, because actually, that’s handy, but that’s not what’s going to get you the client. So what’s going to get you I think that grounding, learning, learning my footing in a residential background, makes you appreciate that the buildings, our people’s homes, and so on, and then transferring that into a commercial setting. Understanding that people run businesses from these from these premises and that’s the most important thing to the people in the business is is key to these organisations. And we’ve got to whatever we do for them, it needs to be it needs to be seamless, so they continue continue to operate. Yeah. And also you’ve got to be able to deliver what you promise and then manage For the hurdles that will come up to make sure that you can deliver on the promise. It’s about communication. I think if there’s a hurdle coming up, people don’t mind so much as long as they’re aware of it. And then when we look at all the options of how to how to overcome that hurdle, if the hurdle comes up out of the blue, and we don’t know what we’re doing, and that’s that’s the issue, I think that comes as, as our role in Project Manager, we’ve done it time and time again. And we know, we know what’s coming. We can foresee most of the issues. And we sort of beginning of the project, we can lay those out at the timeline to make decisions by at that point at that point on these things. They’re always going to be things that come up that we we don’t, we’re not aware of, or we’re not expecting, but it’s how we we know how to deal with those on what to do when they come up. Yeah, well, when we were doing we had a family flat that we, my father was kind enough to let me cut and refurbish with no experience. What I what I found out, that was a big flat that was over three and a half thousand square feet. And what I learned there was, you got to strip back to the bones first. Yeah. Because then you minimise the surprise elements of things coming up further down the project. So if you’ve got the ability, that’s a really good place to start is just strip everything back, get rid of everything, start with the bones, and then build up from there. So So for people who may not know, a chartered surveyor main role is to go into existing buildings and and see their state and what they need by way of repair. And you’ve taken that basis to the next level where you say, Okay, well, I can come in and help you remodel this project, rebuild this project, coordinate all the different elements that need to come together for you to finish, what you’re trying to do here is that is that the rise explained officers have a very broad brush in terms of skills when we leave University as it were, and a number of surveyors will specialise you got collaboration surveyors, party wall surveyors, and then obviously, General acquisition specialty, we go in and look at acquisitions for buildings, and then three to project management. So there’s lots of different specialisms within within our, you know, our trade. We have an eye as a surveyor, I focus more on the project management side of things. So again, having that background of being as bad undertaking acquisition surveys, I know what to look for, I know what’s coming up. And I know you and I have to go through people through that minefield. So talk us through some of the experiences you’ve had in, in sort of, so we’re, our audience are about super prime. So we are we are covering the markets from Hampstead through to Notting Hill in all the super prime locations. So talk us through some of the some of the projects that you have been involved with and super prime, not necessarily the details of what the projects are, but more about when you get brought along and how you use engage with the client. Either. They are realistic enough that they implored you from the start, or they’ve called you in to problem solve. That’s exactly what we do, we do get brought in at various different stages. And we’ve got long standing relationships with clients who are landlords of flats or outside of Mayfair and St. James and so on. And, and they, they bring us in, we look at the project, we walk through with their upset with the builders, and we would give them advice on it. Actually, if you do X, Y and Zed you will save some money because you’re not adjusting the structure. You don’t have to deal with party wars therefore delays. However, you know, you might look at if we if we take that wall out, you’ll gain X amount of square footage so we bring all of that in at that at the very offset. So that didn’t really necessarily answer your question. The types of projects we get involved in a really varied so anything from a one bed flat that we refurbish for set clients all the way through to and large houses and fall sort of means properties that are connected to that dig in basements and do the full refurbishment. I think the the level in which we come in when we when we come in at the very beginning. I think it’s fantastic so we can help clients get involved with the architect out and choose an architect would help them decide on which route they want to go down in that respect. Help them choose the other consultants such as the m&e, consultants, planning consultants, there are there are lots of lots of specialists that you need to deal with, with a building project. And I think it is extremely important that you get the right people on the team at the beginning people who you can get on with as well as you can deliver the service properly. That having that relationship with the team is very, very important, especially if you’re doing a complicated project that maybe evolves and some Planning disputes and so on, knowing that you’ve got the right team fight in your corner is is key. I think we tend to bring all that team together at the outset to make sure that the clients really are on a good footing from the outset. Okay, and do you? I mean, presumably you have a panel of builders and the panel m&e, consultants and QoS, and so on. Do you do you choose these? Also, based on personalities of putting the team together? Is that quite a key? factor? Or do they all come kind of in, in in clubs together? So when you when you get that builder, you know that these is kind of the team of experts that work around him? Or how does that process work? Know that we look at each each project separately, and we we, we see which is appropriate. So there’ll be certain contractors for certain projects. And likewise, for the for the engineers, and for the me, consultants and so on. Within that they certainly they certainly not pigeonhole you exactly. If you take on that contract, then you get x, y, and Zed. That’s not the case, we will make sure that we go out to two or three different contractors, two or three different consultants, for each specialism, we get some prices together, we introduce them to the client so that they know obviously, the cost, they know what they’re doing. And then they get to meet the personality because of, obviously, prices key. People want to make sure that they’re getting value for money, but also want to make sure they’ve got someone who can safe pair of hands and do the work. So I would imagine anybody who’s taking on a building project, and it seems that in the past 10 years, more and more people are taking on building projects. You know, if 10 years ago, somebody asked me to recommend a builder to them, I’d be like, no, sorry, no idea. I can’t help you. It just wasn’t worth it. But I think I think that the world is really evolved, and actually the quality of work. And the sort of professionalism that’s out there seems from where I sit, and I’m not as involved as you are, seems to have really, really become a better quality and better class of services. Absolutely. You know, I think the contracts are the main contractors have really stepped up to the game over the last few years, as you said, there are still people there are still firms out there who may be less scrupulous and less skilled. And I think honestly, those ones you need to keep an eye on, I’ve got a projects, life projects, I went to where it is. But a client of mine who was excavating a basement, they decided that they got the architect involved to design a structural engineer to take design of the basement, then take that over to the contractor who was gonna take it all on, deal with the design and build package, and that the client was going to manage that. Unfortunately, the contractor went slightly off piste, with his, his his works, and dug the piles out of out sequence, the whole building shifted. And this caused, you know, untold damage. In terms of terms of cost and disruption. The property wasn’t just a standalone property, there’s there’s flats above Celsius caused damage to those flats. And and, you know, we think this is what we say we get brought in at different times. And we’re now we’ve now been brought back in to pick up the pieces to deal with contractors to deal with the insurance company. And make sure that all of the flats that gets it back out to the right standard and the works carried out properly. Had we been involved from the offset, we would have spotted that the contractor was digging the piles out of sequence, hopefully, and when we could have stopped before the majority of the damage was was caused. And I think it is about experience I think if your clients have got the experience, and they know how to run a project, fantastic. We can come in with given very light heart light, like touch service and say Actually, these these are the areas you probably need a little bit of advice on. And if you’re a complete novice and you’ve not done it before, however, you’re you’re keen business person and you know how to run a project within your business. And yes, you’ve got a certain amount of their skills but you don’t have all of the skills you need to run a construction project. It’s a it’s a structure body is very interesting beast and it moves in mysterious ways in a sense, because there’s there’s lots of, there’s lots of moving parts, you’ve got to make sure there’s moving parts come together in one head. And I think that’s where we add value, we just we just we collate all of that information, we make sure the clients got all the information at the right time they can make to they need to I suppose people a need to be aware that such a thing exists. But then, you know, a lot of people try to do things at you know, as little cost as possible. So if somebody wants to bring you into a project, I mean, I always say how do you actually balance the fact that if I hadn’t brought in a project manager I would have probably made the same amount of mistakes in time last and wrong decisions made that would cover the cost of having brought in a project manager. So let’s assume that everything goes well, and the client is savvy. And the costs are what they are. Would you say having a construction manager is adding a certain percentage as a general rule to the to the overall cost? What would that normally be? I think? I think it does, it does that we do add value. And I think that that value varies depending on the level of the project and track to the complexity and so on. I guess we could probably save the client. Now, we, we certainly could save our client fees on those projects. And that may be as much as Contract Administration. So we get involved just to contract out. So I’m so sorry, one second. I’m sorry. So the question the question I was asking. So you were saying that you do end up saving them fees? So does that mean that the value you bring to the project ends up in an overall picture costing them less than if they had done it? Absolutely, yeah, in most circumstances, that’s the case, we would certainly save our fees and more on a project. It might be just just looking at just looking at things with experience and and telling a client actually, if you do X, Y, and Zed, you can do this or you can achieve something that’s like a cheaper way. It might be, you know, that that’s, that’s one element, obviously, the other the other side of it is with contractors, the contractors are in it to make money. Yeah, I’m not saying they’re all gonna try and pull the wool over your eyes. But you know, if they come at you with a cost, how do you know, as clients, that cost is the right figure. And you know, by having us on board, we can double check that figure we can go out, we can get another quote for you, we can make sure that those figures are in line with industry standards, that way, all the way through, you’re gonna record is managing those contracts, as well as instructions, you know, keep keeping an eye on on the structure, you’ve always got a final account figure in play, knowing knowing what it’s gonna be all the way through the project. That’s that’s key. Yeah, and I, in my experience, when I when I say when I was given the reins by my father to do this project, what I what I learned is that a lot of people in the in the way that they sign up the contracts with the client, try to basically have nothing you can go back to them about. That’s not It’s nothing to do with me. And so and and, you know, I remember in our case, I was talking to the architect, but you brought everybody along, because Yeah, but you signed the contract directly with them. And that, but now I have a problem. So it was it was it was always a learning curve. Yeah, that we do run projects so that that the client signed contracts with the contract, obviously, we’re not liable for the contract. However, say we’re not liable if the contract sounds if we’re trying to use escape terms your architect may have been using, but what we’re getting at there is we don’t have a financial relationship with them. So if the finances are going to come from yourself as clients, and so obviously, that relationship is important. But what we do is we get the foundations in place. So we make sure that the specification the drawings are all signed, they have all the information on there that they can have. So where were we announced at the beginning? Yes, I you know, make sure you’ve got the right team around you sit down get the team around you make sure you can work with the people that you’re going to be enduring this team this process with and and make sure that you’re getting the right advice. the right advice in the beginning will set you in good stead for the rest of the project. Brilliant, anything you want to share with me that I haven’t covered? Um, no, I think I think just generally we know we are we’re very hands on firm, we like to make sure the client is focused, and we’re flexible. So you know, the client thinks they’ve got an element of experience and they would like us to get involved with helping them a very high level whether it be just putting together contracts and to get the documents we can help with that. If they want the full the full project management role then again, we can we can help with that and move forward and hopefully that gives you some information Sorry, I’m not but I you know, in terms of in terms of complexity, we’ve dealt with all of those issues and you know, when things go wrong, we we pick up and run with it you know, the client Onassis getting certainly involved in that project. But we’ve taken on a lot more and and helped him get through all of those minefields, and we’re hoping to do to complete it was in this year. Oh, well done, well done, and what was up as well. So So how do your clients usually come to you how People usually be be introduced to you. We get clients through mean, Levy, who performative danger levy have been around for nearly 18 years. So we’ve got a fantastic client base. We’ve been based in St. James’s Mayfair, all that time, we’ve kind of got an office on Piccadilly. We would get referred work from existing clients, we get referred work from solicitors, we get referred work from architects, you know, we clients come to us because of our, our reputation. Good. Well, you came to me because you were recommended by a chartered surveyor that I highly regard. So it is all about word of mouth, isn’t it in this in this world? And what would be the what would be the the your advice to somebody who’s taking on a building projects? Well, what would you what would the JCT contract will tell you what type of procurement to use, whether you go into the design and build contract, or a minor works and elements of design and build or whether we get a straight traditional procurement route. So there’s, you know, we’re bringing that to the table and make sure that you signed to the right contract with the right clauses in it. And if it needs amending, we work with your system, make sure that the correct amendments are in there. Okay, so you can help clients basically protect themselves with all these contracts that they signed, that they didn’t necessarily have any clue about what could go wrong, that there needs to be protected for? Absolutely. No, it gives a lot of information. Because, you know, I think that people in different aspects of this business, when they’re like minded in what they do, you know, and from what you’re saying, you’re willing to do as little as much as the client wants, which is a way that somebody develops long term relationships. Yeah, because either they might need you a little bit now. And they might need you a little bit more later. Or they might have friends who need you. And I think it’s a very important way to deal with clients to actually understand what do they need? Or, more importantly, in your case, also, when are they ready? Yeah, I mean, if use the example of the projects that the client secret is in touch with a little while ago, looking at the house, refurb, that was in two flats, and they were just putting it back in. And you know, that we’re happy to go along, we’re happy to walk through the project with them, and spend a little time with them. It’s been a personal morning or afternoon with them walking through the projects, giving them some advice, that’s something we’re happy to do a free of charge to, you know, to give them some advice as to how they need to make progress. Now, if that comes out to be a project, fantastic. If that instance that one doesn’t. They know that we’re there, and we give good advice, and hopefully they’ll pick us up with the next one, you know, thanks for that respect. Exactly, exactly. And I think that’s why, you know, like minded people actually levitate towards each other. And that’s kind of been a bit of an inspiration for why why we’re doing what we’re doing. Because I think there’s a lot of us out there that do try hard and do try to do our best. And I think if we can unite and have a message that goes out to to the people who are needing our services that actually there is a way for you to know where to go to to find people who you can rely on who’ve got experience, you’ve got expertise, and they’re going to hold your hand the right way. Thank you very much. So well, thank you to Gary Barlow of levy that was very interesting and useful if you’re about to take on a development project.