Kennedyandskidmore Reviews 

George Dunmow is not qualified as a Party Wall Surveyor and isn’t registered with any institution that specialises in Party Wall Surveying (such as FPWS or RICS) and therefore his work is not regulated or protected. He is an ‘ambulance chaser’ that trawls through local planning applications to tout for business. He is a one-man-band that set up a company with a totally unrelated name (he is not called Kennedy or Skidmore) and hired office space to make him appear like he is a legitimate company with multiple employees.

‘Kennedy & Skidmore’ wrote a scaremongering letter to our neighbours as soon as we had put in a planning application for an extension, encouraging them to instruct him as early as possible even though our planning application hadn’t yet been approved, let alone a Party Wall Notice served.
If a Party Wall Notice has not been served, any appointment of a PW surveyor is invalid. We hadn’t served a Party Wall Notice at the time so technically our neighbour was unable to contest it and therefore unable to instruct a party wall surveyor.
Mr Dunmow is aware of this but relies on neighbours not knowing the rules and not googling his company reviews. Thankfully we have a very good relationship with our neighbours and they are tech-savy enough to read his awful reviews and unprofessional responses so they decided not to respond to his letter. But I worry for elderly or vulnerable people that do not have internet access or knowledge of the process.

Now our extension is almost complete I want to write this review to warn others of his approach. We spoke to multiple architects and surveyors who all warned us to stay away from him as he is unregulated, unqualified to act as a surveyor and is unprofessional, often quoting fees that are far higher than any qualified, regulated party wall surveyor because he thinks he can get away with charging the building owner whatever he wants because they have no choice in him being selected by the neighbour.

Instructing this company as a neighbour is not risk-free! Even though the person doing the extension is liable for the neighbour’s fees, instructing Kennedy & Skidmore before a Party Wall Notice is served is not chargeable to the building owner. After the Notice is served, if the building owner instructs a separate surveyor any dispute that can’t be resolved between the two surveyors can be deferred to a third surveyor who may find in support of the building owner’s surveyor and hold the neighbour responsible for their fees. As Mr Dunmow is unregulated and is not a professional surveyor there’s more chance he will not follow the correct procedures and something will go wrong. There would be no recourse for the neighbour because he is unregulated.

BEWARE!
My father received a letter from this company and was very nearly convinced by a ‘George Dunmow’

I called the number and put through but it rang out. I rang back repeatedly but the number was cut off since.

I then looked on trust pilot and read all the reviews. Do not reply or make any contact. I’m lucky I stepped in.

They are scammers and should be ashamed of themselves

This company is a con.

They sent my neighbours an incredibly misleading letter implying that I was registered with them.

I have tried to call the company on several occasions only to be hung up on & ignored when they were questioned on the letter.

My neighbours thought they were helping us out by signing the letter.

They have now emailed the company to inform them that they do not require their services.

Also to anyone looking into this company, be aware they had a previous company that was dissolved & then started this one virtually straight away - all info is on companies house.

Do not use these con artists!!!

I have reported to The Property Ombudsman Service (TPOS).

This company tricked my neighbours in to signing up with them by writing to them to inform them of work I am planning on carrying out. The letter was written in a way that implied I was registered with them
My neighbour is elderly and didn't understand what was going on, thankfully her daughter has now emailed the company to inform them they do not require their services!
Shameful behaviour!

dont use these they dont do what they are supposed to absolutely no help given to me to help with damage my neighbours caused my property when they done their extension instead all i got was stressed

Our neighbours instructed Kennedy and Skidmore to look at our party wall prior to our extension taking place and this cost us £1,200 for them to look at the wall for a matter of minutes, before and after the extension. The guy was pleasant enough to deal with however the nail in the coffin was being written to confirming this process was over and they couldn’t even be bothered to pay the £2 postage on the letter. Minor thing but set the tone for our experience with Kennedy and Skidmore as the paying customer.

Kennedy and Skidmore sent us a letter claiming to be a Surveyor, saying he would represent us for free but wanted to charge our neighbour the best part of £2000.00. Our neighbour is our friend.

I of course did my due diligence checks and uncovered terrible reviews, and the content of his letter was very threatening indeed.

The firm is not even RICS. I had a RICS Surveyor represent me at a cost of £700.00 a properly qualified Surveyor who never upset my neighbors who we have to live next too.

Always do your checks and think long and hard before appointing this firm. They are a brand new company no accounts filed at companies house looks like a "one man band".

I did not appreciate receiving unsolicited and inappropriate mail from this company. Their approach seems designed to cause fear and suspicion between neighbours.

In relation to Kennedy&Skidmore's reply I could post the letter I received from the company today, except that it contains addresses. I had never heard of the company before it chose to write to us about Party Walls. It appears that a trawl through local planning applications has provided an opportunity to tout for business.

I used Kennedy and Skidmore on 4 of my properties i am a building developer, they were Professional and Helpful. and would recommend Kennedy and Skidmore

Bunch of chancers who try to scare the living daylights out of people sending letters to neighbours telling them how their house is in danger of getting damaged if they don't use their services.

I was not impressed to receive this company's speculative letter about my neighbour's proposed development. I formed the personal opinion that it seemed like a bit of a fishing expedition.

I was further disconcerted to see that a company claiming to be a specialist surveyor in the UK appears to be unable to spell the unit of measurement the "metre". Using "meter" is not good from a specialist.

Kennedy & Skidmore are unscrupulous party wall surveyors. If they come touting for your custom, get rid of them at the earliest opportunity.

Here's our experience of them. We applied to the local council for permission to extend our house, resulting in a few spam letters advertising services from companies who don't respect the Mailing Preference Service. Kennedy & Skidmore went a step further, though, by contacting our neighbours.

They did this because a party wall surveyor was required, and it was possible for both parties (us and our neighbours) to agree to use the same surveyor. It was also possible for the neighbours to request a second surveyor of their choosing, which usually happens when there's a dispute.

Kennedy & Skidmore wrote speculatively to our neighbours to tell them that they were available as party wall surveyors, but wrote the letter in such a way as to make it seem as though we had already chosen them as ours. The wording didn't say this directly, but without knowledge of the procedure of party wall surveys it was easy to misunderstand. The neighbours signed and returned the enclosed form, appointing Kennedy & Skidmore because they thought we had already done so.

Fortunately we spoke to them and realised what had happened. They wrote a letter to cancel the appointment.

We phoned Kennedy & Skidmore, who told us that the appointment could not be cancelled. They then wrote letters to us and the neighbours, quoting section 10 (2) of the Party Wall Act 1996, which says that the surveyors can't be changed once chosen.

The problem is, section 10 only applies to cases where there is a dispute. Here there was no dispute, and so it's perfectly fine to cancel an appointment. We wrote to tell them this, and haven't heard from them since.

Kennedy & Skidmore either didn't know the law or were deliberately misusing it to confuse us and our neighbours into employing them. Their letter also used the tone and grammar of a petulant child, concluding with the words, "My appointment stands."

Whatever their reason for quoting an irrelevant part of the law, I can't imagine that anyone would want to use a party wall surveyor who uses the Party Wall Act incorrectly.

Goodness know who Kennedy and Skidmore actually are. There's no reference to any individuals with those names on their website, and the director is called George Dunmow according to Companies House (information easily found on Google). The letter came from someone called George Stone. Meanwhile, their website claims to have 11 regional offices but doesn't give addresses or contact details for any of them. Companies House also shows that they became a corporation on 15 January 2018, and therefore haven't filed any accounts yet, so they have absolutely no verifiable background.