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This research aims to continue previous work by the author in the field of commercial service charge management in the UK, offering a unique cross-sectoral comparison in this paper. While prior studies have approached only one sector, this study analyzes both retail and office sectors in the UK. It examines the financial reporting and administrative practices of managing agents and the overall quality of commercial service charge documents, through which it offers commentary on the standard of professional service in service charge provision. It achieves this by benchmarking performance achieved against the accounting requirements of the UK RICS Code of Practice, Service Charges in Commercial Property.

Data were hand collected from analysis of actual service charge documents supplied to commercial retail occupiers at 100 UK office buildings and 100 UK shopping centres during the period of 2010-2013. This process ensures authenticity by removing reliance upon third-party reporting of the said data and offers a uniquely detailed longitudinal sample.

Overall levels of compliance with the financial reporting requirements of the RICS Code of Practice for Commercial Service Charges were poor in both sectors over the period of 2010-2013. Of specific concern was the widespread failure to disclose the accounting policies used during the preparation of the service charge accounts; knowing whether the accounts are prepared using an accruals or cash basis is essential for occupier decision-making purposes. Overall, the results from this study contrast with claims by the professional body that levels of “best practice” are increasing across the service charge industry.

The work analyzes service charge documents prepared during 2010-2013 for 100 office buildings and 100 retail shopping centres located in the UK. While the sample sizes utilized are relatively small, the paper provides a unique in-depth longitudinal analysis of commercial service charge documents that produces findings with high levels of generalizability. Content analysis was utilized to interpret the data and required some subjective judgement by the researcher.

The study provides a comprehensive longitudinal study of accounting and financial reporting practices for commercial service charges in the UK retail and office sectors. Sector data are original, and the paper provides a unique benchmarking approach for assessing Code compliance at each building. This structured longitudinal approach to benchmarking differs markedly from the largely anecdotal evidence offered by the profession when defending current levels of Code compliance. In addition, the paper also provides individual compliance scorecards for 695 service charge documents in order to assess compliance with nine “core” financial reporting requirements of the RICS Code. Its chief value lies in establishing actual practice standards that can be taken up as a driver for improvement – by tenants, agents, landlords and the wider profession.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether financial reporting practices for commercial service charges in the UK retail sector match the best practice requirements of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Code of practice for commercial service charges. This assessment was performed by benchmarking commercial service charge documents provided to retail occupiers at UK shopping centres against the RICS Code’s financial reporting requirements.

Data were generated from direct analysis of actual service charge documents supplied to commercial retail occupiers. This ensures authenticity by removing reliance upon third party reporting of said data. The paper uses a sample size that is representative of the financial reporting practices for commercial service charges at UK shopping centres.

Levels of compliance with the financial reporting requirements of the RICS Code of Practice for commercial service charges are found to be poor, especially in terms of the disclosure of the accounting policies used during the preparation of the service charge accounts. These results contrast with claims by the professional body.

The work analyses service charge documents prepared during 2010-2012 by 44 managing agents and 87 landlords at 126 UK retail shopping centres located in Great Britain. Content analysis was utilised to interpret the data and required some subjective judgement by the researchers.

Data are original and the paper provides a unique benchmarking test for assessing Code compliance. This contrasts markedly with the anecdotal evidence offered by the profession in defending current standards of practice and whilst the paper has limitations, it is the largest and most in-depth study of commercial service charge practices at UK retail shopping centres.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of moral theory as a philosophical analytical framework for built environment organisations' ethical codes of practice. The identified moral theories under consideration are “deontology”, “consequentialism” and “virtue ethics”.

The paper uses a case study to examine the use of moral theory to explain the ethical codes of practice of built environment professional organisations. The chosen organisation is the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). The approach for conducting the case study is through semi‐structured interviews with experienced RICS members which gather views on the application of moral theory to explain the RICS ethical principles.

The case study revealed that there are mixed views on the use of moral theory to explain the RICS code of practice. The general view is that deontology is the most suitable theory to explain the fact that the work or process has been undertaken correctly. On the other hand, there is also a view amongst senior professionals that virtue ethics is most appropriate as it addresses the importance of both the correct “result” and the correct “process”.

The paper uses a case study approach to examine the ethical code of one built environment professional organisation. This research does not therefore claim empirical generalisation but instead provides illustrations on the use of moral theory to explain the code of practice of a built environment professional organisation. The paper is based on a series of interviews. The findings should be understood as the aggregated opinions of the interviewees.

The paper makes an original contribution to existing literature on the theoretical analysis of codes of practice for built environment professional organisations. It describes research which is the first to use moral theory as a framework for analysing rules of conduct of built environment professional organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to critique the accounting and auditing requirements of the 2011 RICS Code of Practice, Service Charges in Commercial Property and examines whether the new 2014 version of the RICS Code and its associated accounting guidance note provide a “best practice” framework for service charge accounting and audit. This theoretical discussion is then applied to empirical data obtained from a sample of UK commercial office properties to assess whether current practices used by managing parties for the preparation and review of service charge reconciliation certificates actually embody the principles of best practice.

The paper uses inductive reasoning to theorise about how the accounting and auditing of commercial service charges might be improved. The paper also uses a deductive approach to identify whether current commercial service charges accounting and audit practices achieve a theoretical level of best practice. The paper reviews a range of secondary literature and utilises hand-collected data from the service charge documents provided to commercial leaseholders.

The paper finds deficiencies within the RICS Code’s requirements for service charge accounting and audit. As a result, empirical evidence is found suggesting that UK commercial service charge accounting and audit practices are inconsistent, lack transparency and provide poor levels of negative assurance for tenants.

Content analysis requires subjective interpretation on behalf of the researcher.

Data are original to this research and provide a unique insight as to the accounting and audit practices used by facilities managers, managing agents, accountants and independent auditors within the commercial property sector.

The paper examines how accounting practice changes, which forces generate change, and the role of a best practice benchmark within this. It examines this process of change within service charge accounting in commercial property. The purpose of this paper is to establish that “best” practice is of a low standard and poorly implemented, and then explain this.

Data are hand‐collected from the original accounting source documents that are routinely provided to commercial leaseholders as part of the service charge management and accountability process. Evidence is generated by directly examining actual service charge budgets and periodic certificates of expenditure incurred to reduce bias, create complete data and ensure authenticity. The findings are then fleshed out and reinterpreted by utilising models created using Laughlin's middle‐range thinking methodology.

“Best” practice is neither onerous nor “best” when compared with normal accounting practices in other occupations. Whilst the 2006 Code of Practice has improved service charge management, the majority of certificates do not conform to best practice. This suggests that “best” practice is rather less a statement of current good practice and rather more an idealised view of the industry enacted due to wider issues, such as tenant resentment attracting government interest, ideas diffusing into the sector from elsewhere or a profession seeking to improve its occupational control.

The sample of service charge budgets and certificates used in this work represents approximately 6.2 per cent of the total estimated multi‐let office space in England and Wales and covers the period 1998‐2009, with the majority of the buildings being tenanted by organisations within the financial services sector. Content analysis is utilised in order to interpret the data and to test actual practice with that required in the Code of Practice. In certain instances such analysis requires some subjective judgement and interpretation by the researchers.

Data are original and the paper offers a unique benchmarking test. The area of service charge management is unpublished and offers an interesting contrast to the better studied regions of the profession. By shedding light into this backwater, it provides the opportunity for academics and professionals to engage in a discourse that will improve practice, perhaps opening up the discipline to new and better practices. It also illuminates the previously technical literature on the concept of best practice with an original conceptual framework in which to review the construct.

The paper benchmarks compliance for 2010‐2011 with the RICS Code of Practice for Commercial Service Charges 2006.

Whether the proxy adopted is measured by floorspace or number of commercial office buildings, the sample size conforms to Kreycie and Morgan's determination for representative sample size. Data are generated directly from the original documents provided to commercial leaseholders to ensure authenticity and remove the need for third party reporting of said data. This guarantees the data are valid.

The research discovers that compliance with the RICS Code of Practice for commercial service charges is poorly, if variably, implemented. This contrasts with claims by the professional body.

The work only concerns 17 corporate tenants operating principally in the financial services sector and data are drawn from the clients of one property services company. Content analysis is utilised in order to interpret the data and requires some subjective judgement by the researchers. The work only refers to multi‐let office space in England and Wales.

Data are original and the paper offers a unique benchmarking test. This contrasts markedly with the anecdotal evidence offered by the profession in defending their standards of practice and whilst the paper has limitations, it is the largest and most accurate study yet carried out in the field.

The paper provides a snapshot analysis on the state of service charge management at the point in which its regulatory framework by RICS changed from a voluntary code of practice to a mandatory professional statement.

The data consist of a unique eight-year longitudinal study of service charge statements and practice (2010–2017). Because of the confidential nature of such business-sensitive information, this is a priceless study of real-world practice over such a long period and is able to illustrate both annual compliance and the year-on-year changes. Given this, it is recognised that data are skewed in favour of compliance because they are derived from an actively managed portfolio.

The results continue to illustrate long-running problems of non-compliance with “required” metrics. Given the inherent bias in the data, this is especially difficult to excuse. The paper also analyses the results in the light of the new RICS professional statement, which requires mandatory compliance. Whilst some of the metrics are advisory, there remain questions over how RICS might realistically enforce so many practitioners to change their existing performance and how willing the institution might be to actually prosecute failure. It also revisits the issue of institutionalised benchmarking of standards. Intriguingly, there are islands of almost perfect compliance, which offers an interesting contrast and raises further research questions on why some practitioners provide such exemplary work.

The data are derived from the clients of a UK property management consultancy. This does preclude any randomness to the sampling. However, the richness of the data and the methodology adopted provide valid data.

This work offers both unique data and an eight-year longitudinal analysis, but also a timely comparison with the requirements within a new RICS professional statement. This shift in regulatory regime reinforces the value of the work.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of compliance with a voluntary professional Code of Practice. It aims to take service charge management as its subject and it also to discuss how current notions of “best practice” have evolved in order to explain the poor performance uncovered. From this it seeks to derive an alternative perspective and develop a new framework for managing agents to consider utilising in order to advance the generalised principles within the existing RICS Code of Practice, Service Charges in Commercial Property.

The paper applies an inductive reasoning by applying best practice from other disciplines (the specific) to commercial property (hence arguing for their adoption to the general). It utilises a critical review of the secondary literature on the wider aspects of best practice and original data on commercial service charge management to devise an ideal type framework for accounting for service charge moneys.

It provides an idealised conceptual framework for managing agents to consider applying to their management of the service charge process, specifically with regard to accounting issues therein. The paper is not proposing a definitive adoption of accruals accounting, but provides an analysis of the potential advantages – and problems. The intention of this work is to drive consultation for better practice, rather than provide a de facto template for adoption.

The work relies on data previously generated by the authors, and produces an original template and example for the practitioner. The work's primary value is that it proposes an innovative approach to the occupation of the commercial service charge manager. Within this, it also offers advice to the wider profession on how to better regulate the discipline. While the proposed approach offers advantages over the existing best practice paradigm, it generates its own conceptual problems that will need to be considered by professionals.

The RICS code of practice “Service Charges in Commercial Property” was introduced in 2007 with the intention to promote best practice guidelines in the provision and management of commercial service charges. The paper seeks to review the compliance of the code after two years from its inception.

The research employs comprehensive literature reviews and documental analysis through a number of publications retrieved from electronic databases, reports, journals, books, and other relevant secondary information. A critical review of the materials gathered is carried out in understanding the key recommendations as set within the RICS code against the current practice.

Huge gaps are identified between the RICS against existing practice involving several key headings such as transparency, value for money, communication, and responsiveness.

Since the code was only introduced in 2006, limited sources of data available prevents comprehensive results, underlining further discussions on the effectiveness of the code in resolving the critical commercial service charges aspects within the real estate industry.

While the paper intends to raise awareness among the commercial properties stakeholders, recommendations that are made in the paper can be utilised to minimise the gap that exists between the guidelines and the actual implementation by harnessing concerted efforts among the stakeholders in commercial property industry.

This paper provides an in‐depth snapshot of the RICS code of practice to commercial service charges and the progress that has been made towards the application of the guidelines since it was introduced in 2006.

The paper seeks to measure compliance by owners and their managing agents with the RICS Code of Practice Service Charges in Commercial Property, emphasising the financial reporting to tenants in multi‐let financial services buildings.

Data were hand collected by examining original source documents provided to commercial leaseholders as part of the service charge management process. This removes bias from relying on secondary respondents to provide data.

The paper finds that requirements of the Code of Practice are not onerous, and whilst service charge management has improved, the majority of landlords still fail to achieve its requirements.

The sample represents approximately 6.2 per cent of multi‐let office space in England and Wales 1998‐2009. The content analysis method used requires some subjective interpretation by the researchers.

Data are original to this research and the paper offers an analysis on the current standards of accounting practice by service charge managers.