Independence and conflicts of interest in viability review

Viability review independence is the weakest link in most affordable housing negotiations. The applicant instructs a surveyor to say the scheme cannot carry the policy-compliant contribution, the council instructs a reviewer to test that, the applicant usually pays for the reviewer, and the two professionals then disagree by a margin that happens to sit between their clients' positions. Nobody involved is necessarily doing anything improper. The structure invites the suspicion anyway, and the professional rules exist to answer it.

RICS members carrying out this work are bound by mandatory requirements on objectivity and conflicts, and those requirements are the most useful lever an applicant or an objector has.

Why independence is contested here rather than elsewhere

Most planning evidence is testable against a published method. A flood model can be re-run. A daylight calculation can be repeated. A viability appraisal cannot, because the inputs that matter most are judgements: benchmark land value, the developer's return, sales values, build cost inflation over a four-year programme.

Move three of those inputs by five per cent each and a scheme goes from comfortably viable to unviable. That sensitivity is why the identity and independence of the person choosing the inputs carries more weight in viability than in any other discipline.

National guidance responds by standardising the framework rather than the answer. Planning Practice Guidance sets out the approach to benchmark land value based on existing use value plus an appropriate premium, and expects assessments to use standardised inputs and to be transparent about departures from them. It does not remove judgement. It makes departures visible.

Who appoints and who pays

The common arrangement is that the local planning authority selects the reviewer from a panel and the applicant meets the cost, either directly or through a planning performance agreement.

That arrangement is defensible provided three things are true. The authority, not the applicant, selects the individual. The reviewer's duty of care runs to the authority. And the terms of engagement are documented before work begins, including scope, timetable and what happens if the reviewer's conclusion is unwelcome to the party paying.

Where the applicant chooses the reviewer from a list, or negotiates the fee directly with them, the arrangement becomes harder to defend at appeal. Objectors read the officer report for exactly this, and a well-run authority will set the arrangement out in the report rather than leave it to be discovered.

Conflicts that have to be declared

A conflict is not only a direct financial interest. The categories that matter in practice are wider.

• Acting for the applicant, the landowner or a funder on any matter, currently or recently
• Advising on the land acquisition, the sales strategy or the funding for the same scheme
• Acting for a competing landowner in the same market whose interests are affected by the outcome
• A firm-level conflict where another team in the same practice acts for a party
• Any arrangement where the reviewer's future work depends on the party whose figures are being tested

Declaration alone does not cure a conflict. A conflict can be managed with informed consent from all affected parties, and where consent is not given, or the conflict is fundamental, the correct answer is to decline the instruction. Ask for the conflict check in writing at the point of appointment, not after the report lands.

Fees that should not turn on the outcome

Contingent or success-based fees have no place in viability work on either side.

A fee that rises if the affordable housing requirement falls, or that is payable only if the review supports the council's position, compromises the objectivity the professional rules require. The same applies to a fee structured as a percentage of the reduction achieved. If you are appointing someone, ask the question directly and get the answer in the engagement letter.

This cuts both ways, and applicants are entitled to ask it of the council's reviewer as well as being asked it themselves.

Confidentiality against the expectation of publication

Applicants routinely ask for viability evidence to be treated as commercially confidential. National guidance points firmly the other way: viability assessments submitted with an application should be publicly available, and any exceptions are narrow.

The practical position is that redaction is available for commercially sensitive material, such as a specific contract price, and not for the appraisal as a whole. An applicant who submits an assessment on the basis that nobody will see it has misread the guidance, and a council that accepts that basis is storing up a problem for the committee report.

Plan for publication. Write the Viability Assessment knowing that a residents' association will read it line by line, because on any contested scheme one will.

One more publication point. Where an assessment is submitted after the application has been validated, perhaps during negotiation on a resolution to grant, it can escape the main consultation period altogether. Objectors notice, and inspectors have criticised the practice. Submitting the viability case with the application, rather than producing it once the officer has signalled a difficulty, is both better practice and a stronger position to defend.

Challenging a review on process

Where a review is wrong, the argument is usually better run on process than on arithmetic, because arithmetic disputes turn into competing spreadsheets that officers cannot resolve.

Process points that carry weight: no documented conflict check, a scope that excluded an input the reviewer then commented on, a benchmark land value adopted without evidence of comparable transactions, failure to engage with the applicant's evidence on a specific input, and a report that arrives after the committee papers so it cannot be answered.

Raise them in writing before the committee, addressed to the case officer, with a request that the correspondence be reported to members. A point made at the meeting is a point members hear once. A point in the late representations schedule is a point in the record.

Keeping your own appraisal defensible

Four habits make the difference on the applicant's side.

1. State every input with its source and date, including build cost, sales values, finance rate, profit target and land value, and say which are evidenced and which are judgements.
2. Run sensitivity analysis and publish it, rather than presenting a single answer as if it were a measurement.
3. Accept a review mechanism where the numbers are hard to pin down. A late-stage review in the section 106 agreement often unlocks a scheme that a fixed position cannot.
4. Keep the viability case consistent with the rest of the application, including the Affordable Housing Statement, the phasing and the delivery programme.

The credibility of the appraisal is built from those, and it is spent quickly by a single input that cannot be sourced.

One honest uncertainty runs through all of it. Benchmark land value is the input with the least reliable evidence base on most sites, because comparable transactions are few, often unpublished, and frequently reflect prices agreed before the policy position was understood. Two competent surveyors can reach different figures on the same land in good faith. Acknowledging that in the report, and showing the range rather than a point estimate, is more persuasive than defending a single number nobody can verify.

For work of this kind councils usually expect a suitably qualified author, and professional review is strongly advised. The PlanScope professional directory is one route to a reviewer who can check the approach before submission.

For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required. This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.