Richard Sherwood - Chief Operating Officer

Richard oversees Easton Bevins’ operations, ensuring the practice maintains its strategic direction and high professional standards.

Richard combines operational leadership with extensive hands-on experience across all core building surveying disciplines, with a particular focus on legal and regulatory matters. He leads a team of surveyors, mentors graduates as an APC counsellor, and heads the London office.

Alongside his COO duties, Richard remains actively involved in projects spanning pre-acquisition surveys, Fire Risk Assessments, external wall assessments, dilapidations advice, Party Wall matters, planning permissions, listed building consents, and building regulation applications. He also works closely with the litigation team, preparing CPR Part 35 compliant Expert Witness Reports.

Drawing on his background in engineering and subsequent building surveying expertise, Richard provides pragmatic, technically sound advice to clients across the residential, commercial and educational sectors. His operational oversight ensures projects are delivered efficiently, safely, and in line with professional and statutory standards.

Qualifications

• Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS)
• RICS External Wall Systems (EWS) Assessment Training Programme Level 6
• Master’s Degree (Hons), Aerospace Engineering, University of Southampton
• Post-Graduate Diploma in Building Surveying (GDipSurv), University of West England

Richard Sherwood - CV

Richard began his career as an engineer, a foundation he continues to draw on in his building surveying work, providing technical insight and precision in surveys and design. He has a strong interest in historic buildings, completing numerous refurbishment projects on period properties and overseeing improvement works for a long-standing school client in a Grade II listed building, as well as extensive works at a Grade I Listed estate in central London.

After retraining as a Building Surveyor in 2014, Richard progressed rapidly within Easton Bevins. He started as a graduate, achieved RICS membership in 2017, and subsequently became an Associate Director, then Director, before taking on his current role as Chief Operating Officer.

Richard has acted in a wide range of construction disputes, representing contractors, householders, management companies, and surveyors in matters including defective works claims, party wall disputes, and professional negligence. He is competent acting as contract administrator on residential and commercial projects, ensuring works comply with contractual requirements, relevant legislation, and professional standards. Clients have included householders, schools, retail clients, investors, and estates, including providing retained contract administration services and pre-acquisition surveys in central London.

He regularly undertakes pre-acquisition and defect diagnosis surveys, identifying potential risks and advising on mitigation. Richard is also retained as a Party Wall Surveyor for national developers, householders, and commercial clients, acting as Building Owner’s Surveyor, Adjoining Owner’s Surveyor, or Agreed Surveyor. His work involves extensive knowledge of the Party Wall etc. Act and protecting the rights of all parties.

Richard has significant experience in dilapidations claims, acting for landlords and tenants, advising in line with the Dilapidations Protocol, and supporting settlements to achieve fair and commercially balanced outcomes.