He advises landlords and investors on warehouse leases. Every instruction ends in a report or a summary, and every summary gets checked against the lease by hand, by him, because his name is on it. There is no junior to do a first pass.
The Starting Point
One Surveyor, Every Summary Checked By Hand, And A Regulator That Had Just Put AI In Writing.
He'd already thought hard about AI, and his first list ran to four tools. Together they were a year of work for a practice of one, and the wrong place to start.
He also had two conditions. His clients' leases could not leave his control. And nothing could dilute his professional responsibility for the advice, a point his regulator had recently put in writing in a new professional standard on AI in surveying practice.
What We Did
One Tool, Two Jobs, Built Inside His Own Account With The Regulator's Paperwork Alongside.
- One tool, two jobs. A report checker that works through his draft summary point by point against the lease and flags anything missing, wrong or inconsistent, and a first-pass lease summary in his own structure. Both run inside his own Claude account, with no platform and no data held by us.
- Built on his examples. Shaped on leases and summaries he'd already produced, and refined over several weeks with him deciding what stayed in and what came out.
- The regulator's paperwork alongside the build. A risk register, a due diligence record, data protection support and a human review process, plus a strengthened version of the impact assessment he'd started with his solicitor. His wording stayed his.
- A contract written for a practice of one. His data stays his, no training on it, no reuse for anyone else, and the tool supports his judgement rather than replacing it. His lawyer marked it up and we accepted every change.
Where It Landed
The First Pass Now Arrives As A List Of Points To Check.
Checking a summary against a long lease is the part of the job that can't be rushed and can't be skipped. Now the first pass arrives as a list of points to check, and his time goes on the judgement calls rather than the hunt.
Appreciate your work on this.
The client, by email
What We'd Tell Another Solo Professional
Keep The Data In Your Own Account, And Stay The Signatory.
- Start with the one task you check by hand every single time. That's where a first pass from AI earns its place, and where you'll know within a week whether it's any good.
- Keep the data in your own account. Your own subscription with the privacy settings set properly beats a platform that holds your clients' documents for you.
- Do the regulator's paperwork while you build, not after. It's a day's work alongside the build and a month's work after the fact.
- You stay the signatory. The tool is a second pair of eyes. It's never the first.