Organisation and Practice 421 bridge or an underpass; or whether open cut.
Many newly qualified chartered surveyors see the achievement of a part-nership as their ultimate goal, in the same way that an aspiring academic hopes that he will one day become a professor. It is a wide ranging and important subject which can be dealt with only in outline in this book owing to limitations of space. It should be noted that practices can only describe themselves as 'chartered surveyors' or 'chartered quantity sur-veyors' when the majority of partners are corporate members of the RICS.
Nature of a Partnership The Partnership Act 1890, which is the main Act concerned with partner-ship law, defines a partnership as 'the relation which subsists between persons carrying on a business in common with a view to profit.' A busi-ness is defined as 'including every trade, occupation or profession.' The prime requirement for a successful partnership is mutual trust between the partners (RICS, 1980) The duty of good faith which must exist between the partners overrides all other considerations (Harmer and Camp, 1982). It is frequently said that a partnership is as important a relationship as marriage and much the same criteria apply when choosing a partner. Furthermore, each partner is jointly and severally liable for the partner-ship debts, limited only by the extent of his private estate, and hence a partnership should never be entered into hastily. There are basically two ways in which chartered surveyors may prac-tice together: (1) formation of a limited or unlimited liability company in circumstances defined by the RICS General Council; and (2) partnership. The only true partner is an equity partner, who is responsible for and derives benefit from the assets and business of the practice. Aspiring part-ners are often offered positions as associates or salaried partners, who receive some share of the profit of the practice in addition to a salary. In this way improved status and income are secured although some believe that it is mainly a device to retain the services of very competent mem-bers of staff. Their inclusion on the notepaper of the practice could render them liable for the firm's debts in the event of the assets of the equity partners being insufficient to meet them, hence they need to be adequately indemnified by the equity partners against this liability. Consultants are