International Property Measurement Standards and the Implications for the Spatial Industry

International Property Measurement Standards and the implications for the Spatial industry.

Mike Stapleton

Landdata Surveys Pty Limited

Executive Summary

On 24 November 2014 the International Property Measurements Standards (IPMS) Coalition published the International Property Measurements Standards for office building. The Coalition includes the Australian Property Institute, the Property Council of Australia and FIG. As all members are committed to adopting the Standard, it is likely that it will be adopted in Australia, and there will obviously be impacts within Australia and for land surveyors and other spatial professionals involved with the measurement and size of buildings. The Coalition is planning to develop standards for the measurement of other categories of buildings with residential buildings being the next category on the agenda and industrial and retail buildings to follow.

The aims of the coalition as stated on the website of the IPMS include the bringing about the harmonisation of national property measurement standards through the creation and adoption of agreed international standards for the measurement of office, residential, industrial and retail property. Their aim is furthermore to enable properties to be measured on a transparent basis that promotes market efficiency through greater confidence between investors, occupiers and funds. The growth of cross‐border property investment and expansion by global corporate occupiers underpins the demand for transparency against the background of many differing national and local measurement conventions.

Currently the guidelines of the Property Council of Australia are used for the determination of areas for lease purposes, as well as environmental ratings. The Guidelines are more extensive than the new Standard and cover a wider range of building categories. The Property Council Guidelines are referred to in legislation and thus the consequence of changes from the adopted measurement standard will also need to be considered from a legislation perspective.

As the number of international property investors and lessees increase, so too did the need for an international standard. The IPMS is the result. In this paper the international standards are examined and the implications for surveyors and the wiser community are discussed.

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