Rapleys continues to expand senior team with Partner hire in Building Consultancy as team income grows 300% in 18 months

UK, 15 May 2023 – Property consultancy Rapleys has continued the growth of its Building Consultancy team with the appointment of Paul Dunne as partner.

Paul was previously head of London Building Consultancy at Colliers in a role which also saw him leading the professional services team as Technical Director. He has 30 years’ experience in the industry, having worked in the office, retail, warehouse/logistics/light industrial, automotive, and period/listed building sectors of the industry.

Paul’s specific expertise lie in due diligence acquisition/condition surveys; peer reviews of survey reports; dilapidations for both landlord and tenant, including lease exit strategic advice; dilapidations assessments; defect diagnosis and rectification advice; project and alterations monitoring; specific condition and defect diagnosis assessments on general and listed buildings. He has also worked on a number of landmark, complex and “quirky” buildings including, for example, Middleport Pottery in Burslem (where the Great Pottery Throwdown is filmed); and the Kaleidoscope Building above the new Farringdon Elizabeth Line station.

The move comes as Rapleys’ Building Consultancy division celebrated a 300% rise in income over the last 18 months and the promotion of Dan Tapscott, Head of Neighbourly Matters and James Porter, Head of Building Surveying in London to Equity Partners. In September, the business reorganised around just four core services, with Building one of them, and promoted divisional Head Justin Tuckwell to Managing Partner.

Justin said: “The appointment of Paul is another strategic move within our plan to grow sustainably with the right talent across the full service and multi-sector offer we provide to clients. Paul’s technical knowledge, ability to run projects and large teams, and diverse industry sector experience will be of immense value to Rapleys and fits our capabilities perfectly. We look forward to continuing to grow with other such talent over the coming months.

Building Consultancy used to be seen as an add-on service within multi-disciplinary firms, but we saw an opportunity to bring it front and centre of our organisation by professionalising the way we offer services, bringing in absolutely world-class talent to launch new services and ensuring we were able to be wherever the clients wanted us nationally. This has been a huge success with our income up 300% in 18 months, the team growing by 25% last year and Building bringing in fees for other disciplines and teams.”

Paul said: “Rapleys, and its Building team, has become a real force to be reckoned with and has a strong reputation amongst developers, landlords and occupiers alike for delivering projects with immense added value. I am really excited to become part of the team, help with the ongoing ambitious growth story, and also collaborate with the wider business, all of whom are respected and well-liked.”

In the last few months, Rapleys’ Building Consultancy division has also hired Jack Cawthra as head of cost consultancy, Lee Fraine as head of sustainability and building services, while its Housing Consultancy team, launched in late 2021, has become one of the market leaders.