George Palos
B.Sc.(Eng) ACGI FRICS FCIArb MAE MIET
Position:
Head of Professional Services, Director
Professional Qualifications
- Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (2012), FCIArb
- RICS Diploma in Adjudication (2012)
- Member of Academy of Experts (2012), MAE
- Fellow of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (2012), FRICS
- Member of Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (2010), MCIArb
- RICS Presidents Course for Arbitrators (2010)
- RICS Presidents Course for Independent Experts (2010)
- Diploma in International Construction Law and Arbitration, Robert Gordon University
- RICS Accredited Mediator (2009)
- Member of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (1991) MRICS
- Member of The Institute of Engineering and Technology (1987) (Formerly the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers), MIET
- Associate of The City and Guilds of London Institute, ACGI
- B.Sc.(Eng.), Imperial College, Electrical Engineering
Overview & Summary
George Palos has 31 years experience in the surveying profession with a focus on disputes and their resolution culminating in his appointment to the RICS President’s Panel of Arbitrators and Panel of Expert Witnesses. Elected a Fellow of both The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators since 2012.
During the 31 years of his business life he has practised as a surveyor advising on many aspects of residential and commercial property, investment, development and management. This includes Building Disputes; survey; pathology; defect diagnosis; repair; Dilapidations, and Party Walls.
His early training was in general practice and building surveying looking at all aspects of building construction and pathology; property law; landlord and tenant; and valuation. Expert witness reports have been a mainstay of professional practice and he sits as an Arbitrator and carries out Expert Determinations. He has developed his personal practice into mediation in order to apply his skills at assisting parties to resolve their issues in an effective manner at lower cost and in a less confrontational way where possible.
In recent years he has passed the RICS Diploma in Adjudication and Robert Gordon University Diploma in International Arbitration and Construction Law as well as RICS courses in arbitration and expert determination. He has considerable experience in disputes both as an Expert Witness and Arbitrator/Expert determiner being on the President’s panels of Arbitrators and Expert Witnesses and as an arbitrator he is one of a small number of panel members who deal with non-rent matters.
He founded Anderson Wilde and Harris 26 years ago and has grown it from himself alone to a peak of 50 employees and currently a little under 40 and reflecting his personal practice has maintained valuation and building surveying teams.
His professional experience has spanned commercial and residential property, secondary to prime, with a particular emphasis on disputes acting as an expert witness and gaining his earliest experience in the witness box in the late 1980’s in Central London, Clerkenwell and Edmonton County courts.
A member of the Building Surveying, Construction, Dispute Resolution and Valuation Faculties of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Actively involved in the valuation of residential and commercial property advising Vendors and Purchasers as well as Banks via the company’s inclusion on commercial and residential bank valuation panels. He has given evidence as an expert witness in arbitration, expert determination, the LVT, the County Court, the High Court, and The Technology and Construction Court, and made expert determinations in rent and non-rent disputes and sits as an Arbitrator.
Building Surveying practice ranges from defects to projects examples of which include the conversion of 5 office floors to 35 residential units; external and common parts refurbishment, concrete repair and addition of 5 number 11th and 12th floor duplex penthouses with roof gardens over a 1960’s concrete mixed use property in NW3; three number 4th floor penthouses in Clapham; the rebuilding of a substantial Grade II listed Norman Shaw designed fire damaged house on Totteridge Lane N20 circa £1.5 million pounds.
He also has experience of advising on timber framed housing; some modern but principally period which is frequently near the Bury St Edmunds office.
He has extensive valuation experience on Residential and Commercial properties throughout London, the South East and UK wide procured via work over the years advising banks, solicitors, trusts and private clients.
He prepares numerous Expert Witness reports each year on a variety of issues including regular reports on issues of surveyors and solicitors negligence; before their demise he was regularly appointed to advise the Solicitors Indemnity Fund.
With mediations he has now conducted over 50, about 6 to 7 a year, which are principally property and building matters. These include construction projects and party wall matters.
He has acted as an RICS APC Counsellor and Supervisor for over 40 candidates and is an RICS APC assessor. He enjoys running the firms CPD program and teaching graduates and more experienced surveyor’s different aspects of the profession. He has conducted numerous seminars on varied topics within the profession.
Outside of surveying he has enjoyed business success in catering, hotel apartments and property investment. He served as a Trustee for Imperial College Students Union supporting them through their
preparations and application to be a registered charity.
Recently he has assisted in effecting the equity funding for the Kent Institute of Medicine and Surgery a new build state of the art private tertiary hospital; the first to be built in Kent for over 20 years. He sat as a director on the board for 9 years until 2021.
A father of three including a “toddler” he enjoys walking, skiing, fishing, Scrabble and travel.
Career
2012
Appointed to RICS Presidents Panel of Expert Witnesses
2011
Appointed to RICS Presidents Panel of Arbitrators
1995 – to date
Director, Anderson, Wilde and Harris Chartered Surveyors
2010 – 2014
Lay Trustee, Students Union, Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine
2010 – 2014
Managing Partner, Dilaps UK, City Office
1991 - 1995
Practised on own Account as George Palos, Chartered Surveyor
1987 - 1991
S J Beckingham and Associates
1991 - 2006
Scala House Hotel Apartments, Director
Key recent Instructions / experience
Residential
- Project managed conversion of 5 office floors to 35 residential units. £3,500,000
- Project managed external and common parts refurbishment, concrete repair and addition of 5 number 11th and 12th floor duplex penthouses with roof gardens over a 1960’s concrete mixed use property. £3,100,000
- Project managed 3 number 4th f oor penthouses at Balham Hill opposite Clapham South Underground Station contract £1.1 million.
- Project Managed rebuilding of a substantial Grade II listed Norman Shaw designed f ire damaged house on Totteridge Lane N20 circa £1.5 million pounds.
- Arbitration and expert determinations on London ground rent reviews.
- Arbitration and expert determinations on residential dilapidations.
- Expert Determination on whether Premier Guarantee Defect Warranty is equivalent to NHBC Buildmark requirement within a development agreement.
- Arbitration on water damage nuisance.
- 4 London penthouses on possible blight as a result of defective workmanship.
- Punitive ground rent provisions expert witness reports the claimants.
- Valuation of W11 grade 2 listed house value circa £35 million on effect of unauthorised alterations without listed building consent.
- Croydon, Development appraisal of 17 storey partial built tower of 182 units. £10,000,000 Land value circa. £70,000,000 GDV.
- Dover, Development Appraisal of 222 house project Circa £25,000,000 GDV.
- Park Street, Mayfair – Survey, Valuation and Enf ranchisement advice to a trust £12,500,000 value prior to major refurbishment.
- Kensington Park Gardens, W11 – Survey and Valuation £17,000,000.
- Hamilton Terrace, NW8 – Survey and Valuation; specific advice on structural movement and boundaries and implications for value, £8,000,000
- Villa Sada, Ospedalleti, Near San Remo, Italy – Survey, Valuation €12,500,000 before major refurbishment, Advice on aspects of refurbishment contract of €5,500,000 with specific attention to Burma Teak Flooring, 2 Infinity Pools structural, and Windows and Stainless Steel railings in corrosive sea front environment.
- Archway, N19 Development of 58 private f lats and 19 Social Housing units. Circa. £25,000,000 GDV.
- Temple Fortune, NW11 – Substantial Service charge dispute at LVT.
- NW3, Expert determination of Retrospective Value of Flat £1,300,000.
- Nominated to determine ‘loss’ in insurance contract.
- Numerous Lease extension cases from secondary to Prime properties Including Marylebone and Grosvenor Square.
commercial
- Various commercial rent arbitrations principally on retail and industrial within London.
- Arbitration on the abatement of rent following flood damage to a nightclub and at what point the premises were fit for occupation.
- Rent review advice and representation for prime 1,000 sq m retail store/market Hall in South East London.
- Rent review advice and representation for Secondary Sainsbury’s Local in South London.
- Letting and investment advice on a Waitrose local Store of 18,000 sq ft in North London.
- Rent review advice and representation for Prime Suburban Of f ices circa 35,000 Sq ft in North East London.
- Rent review advice and representation for Prime Suburban Of f ices circa 32,000 Sq ft in North West London.
- SW16 Mixed Use Development Retail, Gym, A3 and housing £2,600,000.
- SW12 Mixed Use investment Retail A3, Dentist and Residential £4,460,000.
- Advice on various Prime/Semi Prime retail units on Southall Broadway.
- Various rent reviews of secondary retail and catering/takeaway units.
Specialist Issues of Interest
- In the Technology and Construction Court he was the Applicants surveyor in the reported case of Cunningham v Collett and Farmer (2006) 113 Con LR 142 before His Honour Judge Coulson. An architect’s negligence case relating to Project Management. Gave evidence on use of Letters of Intent and good practice in Project management. The judge criticised letters of intent for all the reasons I advised and advised when and how they should be used. (Summary here below).
- Eugena Limited v Gelande Corporation Limited [2004] EWHC 3273 (QB), HHJ Hegarty QC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge (Judgment 29 October 2004). He was the expert instructed by ‘Gelande’ advising on JCT Minor Works Contract, Use of Letters of Intent by project managers, the value and quality of works carried out under the different possible contracts.
- Provided in 3 different cases over many years specialist expert evidence and testimony on the special impact of break clauses on the rental value of restaurant premises, cases including lease renewal in Tottenham Court Road; and a substantial compensation claim for negligence of 2 firms
of solicitors, they being represented by Davis Coffer Lyons and Intrinsic respectively. - Appearing as an Expert witness in a formal arbitral hearing before Clive Lewis FRICS, (RICS President retired), on the issue of assumed vacant possession of residential premises at review that were in fact occupied by regulated tenants and the correct valuation approach for such rent review.
