Meet the team: 5 Minutes with Rebekah Garrity

At SRVO Property, understanding existing buildings requires technical knowledge, careful observation and an appreciation of how different elements interact over time.

We caught up with Rebekah Garrity to learn more about her journey into building surveying, her approach to working with older buildings and why transparency is so important when advising clients.

With an early background in Architecture and a particular interest in conservation and sensitive reuse, Rebekah brings a thoughtful and practical approach to understanding buildings and helping clients make informed decisions.

Which recent project are you most proud of, and what did it teach you?

I am most proud of delivering a residential building survey for a late-19th-century former farm worker’s cottage in a historically sensitive setting. I traced its development from the original solid-brick, clay-tiled cottage through later extensions, and set out a practical route for sympathetic modernisation.

It reinforced the importance of viewing older buildings as whole systems. Floors, insulation, ventilation and heating all interact, and unsuitable impermeable materials can trap moisture in traditional solid-wall construction. The project taught me that good advice needs to balance technical rigour, historical understanding and realistic recommendations for the owner or property manager

Which of our values resonates most with you, and how do you live it day-to-day?

Transparency resonates most with me. I see surveyors as building doctors: our role is to diagnose clearly and give clients the full picture, including difficult findings. Day to day, that means explaining risks in plain language, being honest about uncertainty, and pairing problems with practical, achievable options for putting them right.

Describe your journey into property. What first drew you to the industry?

I initially set out to become an architect and began university studying Architecture. I enjoyed my studies, but a project at Liverpool’s Eldon Grove estate changed my direction. The brief was to convert a pre-war social housing block into a community hub, and I found myself more interested in conserving and sensitively reusing the building than in the design proposal itself.

That experience showed me that building surveying combines the parts of the industry I am most drawn to: understanding existing buildings, solving practical problems and helping buildings have a more sustainable future.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone starting in our sector, what would it be?

Remain curious. The best surveyors keep learning from everyone around them, regardless of experience or role. Practically, that means taking the time to observe closely, through sketches and photographs, and using books and tools such as British Trees or Google Lens to understand the wider setting. Even something as ordinary as a nearby tree can affect a building through shading, subsidence risk or storm damage.

What’s the most memorable or interesting thing you’ve seen on site or during a project?

I once inspected a cottage attached to a mill that was, quite literally, rotating towards the river. It was noteworthy because the structural problem came with a web of practical constraints: a tight site, Party Wall considerations, possible riverside underpinning, potential diversion of the watercourse and the risk of interrupting the mill’s operations.

It was a powerful reminder that surveying is rarely just about diagnosing a defect; it is about finding a workable solution within the building’s wider context.

What’s your favourite building?

My favourite building changes, but I am particularly fond of Mia House in Nottingham, an Italianate building beside the Albert Hall, designed by R. C. Sutton in 1878. It has a wonderfully confident façade: the corbelled chimney, hipped slate roof and modillion cornice are balanced by unusually elaborate window and door detailing.

I especially like that it makes such a feature of its windows, considering it was built after the window tax was abolished. It is a richly decorated building, but the composition still feels coherent and elegant; even its later central glazing sits comfortably within the original façade.