The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has appointed Nick Maclean as Acting President.
This follows the involvement of current President Justin Sullivan as an expert witness in High Court proceedings, which he has referred to RICS's Standards and Regulation Board’s regulatory team.
Maclean has 30 years of experience at CBRE including being chair of CBRE Middle East and North Africa Region and seven years as a Scottish trade envoy. He has also been an active member of RICS for over 20 years having served on and chaired Governing Council.
RICS employs 723 staff in total, 200 of them in standards and regulation. Sullivan, the founder and chief executive of construction consultancy business Adair, became the RICS president for 2025 on 1 January.
He has been in the spotlight after serving as an expert witness for the defendant in a case focused on a couple who paid £32.5 million for a mansion in Ladbroke Grove which they subsequently found to be infested with moths. The judge who ruled in favour of the claimants criticised Sullivan's testimony saying: “I was unimpressed by his exercise of judgement, which seemed to me to be flawed in many instances, and by his approach to answer questions that were put to him.”
In a statement on its website RICS said: "Justin Sullivan denies any wrongdoing. The expert witness process is by its nature adversarial, therefore it is inevitable that there are disagreements. Mr Sullivan acted as an independent expert witness in this case in accordance with Ministry of Justice CPR Part 35 which sets out expert witnesses duties, and RICS Surveyors expert witnesses 4th edition amended February 2023 rules, which sets surveyors’ professional standards. To ensure all standards were followed he has asked the RICS independently-led regulator to assess the case.'”
Today RICS said it has received several inquiries from members regarding the judgment and it will provide "more information on this matter to our members as soon as possible".
A spokesman on behalf of Justin Sullivan said: "There is a misunderstanding and an over-reaction. Mr Sullivan is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor and is instructed in litigation as an expert witness. There is no finding of professional misconduct against Mr Sullivan. He has referred himself to RICS as a matter of routine. That process is confidential. Mr Sullivan has nothing further to say at present."
The industry body is looking to draw a line under a turbulent few years.
In 2022, the institution began implementing the Bichard independent review into its purpose, governance and strategy. The independent review was published in June 2022 with 36 recommendations for its overhaul, citing an "urgent" and "unarguable" need for change. The institution had already committed to implementing the 18 recommendations of the Levitt inquiry into events that took place in 2018-19 following an audit of RICS's finances.