QuanSur is a professional Quantity Surveying practice delivering accurate, independent cost advice across the property environment, from first estimate to final account.
Originating as a Quantity Surveying practice in 1997, QuanSur now delivers a full range of services across the property environment. With more than 170 years of collective QS experience and the latest in information technology, we take your project from idea, to drawing board, to completion, without interruption.
Registered professionals: SACQSP & ASAQS registered practice (No. 832)
One stop solution: from feasibility and BoQs to tender, audit and dispute resolution
Technology driven: BIM systems and a client dashboard for every critical metric
Acting as an approved expert witness, QuanSur has assisted numerous clients to determine whether their Bills of Quantities reflect their contracts and industry acceptable rates, and to claim back overcharged amounts.
Private & corporate clients · Nationwide
Contractor Assist
Recovering rightful payment
When clients withhold payment unduly, we determine the true value of the short payment and assist contractors through settlement negotiation, adjudication and arbitration, so you are paid what is rightfully due.
Contractors & subcontractors · Nationwide
Development Management
From idea to completion
From public sector schools and clinics to private residential estates across South Africa, QuanSur has taken projects from drawing board to final account, with the budget managed at every stage.
Developers & private clients · SA & abroad
Public Sector
Accountability on public spend
Final account and infrastructure programmes for the Western Cape Department of Transport & Public Works, independent financial control where accuracy matters most.
Government & institutional clients
Our Experience
Your trusted construction cost experts
QuanSur's professionals work across every sector of the built environment, combining registered QS expertise, legal insight and hands on construction experience.
Submit your needs and we will tailor a fee to suit your project. Tell us about your build, your budget and your concerns, and we'll respond with a clear proposal.
Recommendations from government departments, architects and developers who have worked with QuanSur.
“The expertise, dedication and solution orientated qualities of the professional personnel have always been of a high standard.”
Axel van LeeuwenChief Quantity Surveyor · WC Dept. of Transport & Public Works
“QuanSur (Pty) Ltd has been a pleasure to work with. Their promptness and professionalism proved invaluable on the Ubuntu Primary School project.”
Tim Hewitt ColemanPrincipal Consultant · NOH Architects
“They have made a seemingly overwhelming task very easy for someone with limited building experience like myself.”
Gerhard DuvenhageClient · JAM Hub
“It's a pleasure working with QuanSur, one is left wanting to continue on future roads with them in a deadline driven construction world.”
Theunis van ZylPr Tech Eng, Pr CPM · Aeon Devco
“The staff all acted in a professional manner, applied themselves diligently and produced work to a high level of quality. I would highly recommend working with them.”
Originating as a Quantity Surveying practice in 1997, QuanSur now delivers a full range of professional services across the property environment.
25+Years of practice built on surety
Who We Are
Surety on cost, risk & value, since 1997
Martin Cloete founded the original Quantity Surveying practice in January 1997, later incorporated as QuanSur (Pty) Ltd. Today, under Commercial Director Jaco van der Westhuizen, QuanSur is a comprehensive professional service provider to construction clients and builders alike.
Whether you need integrated project services through our IPC affiliation, professional Bills of Quantities, your minor works project placed out to tender through OnTender, or an independent Construction Audit, QuanSur is your one stop solution, taking your project from idea, to drawing board, to completion without interruption.
SACQSP & ASAQS registered: Practice Registration No. 832
170+ years of collective Quantity Surveying experience
BIM & integrated software: from inception to building in use
More than two thirds of all business decisions are emotional decisions. We respect that, and we bring the numbers that let both worlds meet.
Understanding first
To serve you effectively we first understand your business and objectives, so we can anticipate developments and identify innovative opportunities.
Pursuit of innovation
We think beyond standard financial and legal obligations, identifying opportunities and anticipating the next step. Your success is our goal.
Technology driven
We invest continuously in information technology, including BIM systems and client dashboards that enhance the quality and speed of every service.
Leadership & Team
Registered professionals, real construction experience
Jaco van der Westhuizen
Director
Founder and Director with roughly 24 years across construction and quantity surveying, spanning residential, commercial, industrial and public/voluntary sector work.
PrQS · MRICS · PMAQS · MBA (USB)
Amanda Dreyer
Administrative Support / PA
Thirteen years in the quantity surveying industry, supporting day to day operations, tender research, database management and the QS team.
Administration · Tender Research · Project Close Out
Gerdus Cloete
Professional Quantity Surveyor
Professional Quantity Surveyor with experience on standalone and clustered projects with contract values from R7m to R279m, in conventional and specialised QS.
PrQS · B.Sc. Hons (QS) (NMMU)
How Fees Work
See our fee as insurance: an investment in peace of mind
We negotiate a fee with each client once we know the extent of the project and what we believe you need. Fees are initially based on the recommended scales of the South African Council for the Quantity Surveying Profession (SACQSP), then tailored to your project.
Fees adjust when services are combined or repeated across a project
Contract type, tender documents and engineering involvement all considered
In over 90% of cases we're appointed in more than one role, and you benefit from the overlap
Professional services across the property environment
From first estimate to final account, and every contract, tender and dispute in between.
Service 01
Quantity Surveying
Our QS division gives you surety that your contracts and costs are properly managed. Making use of the latest information technology, including a user friendly dashboard showing every critical metric, the QuanSur team is the responsible party determining your construction budget.
Building cost estimates & overall project budgets
Comprehensive financial feasibility studies
Cash flow projections and monthly cost control
Progress valuations and final payments to contractors
Statement of final account for a final project sum
Comprehensive and accurate Bills of Quantities allow you to calculate fair and exact tender prices. We prepare BoQs in the form your project needs, and advise which form that is.
Full Bills of Quantities and Bills of Provisional Quantities
Schedules of Rates and Simplified BoQs
Performance based and Cost Plus tender documents
Schedules of materials and tender evaluations
Advice on the right tender document for your contract
Were you overcharged, or short paid? As financier, client, contractor or subcontractor you have the right to a detailed analysis of funds spent. QuanSur acts as an approved expert witness to challenge incorrect billing and to prove work completed.
Determine what the project should really have cost
Identify overcharging on Bills of Quantities
Value short payments due to contractors
Settlement negotiation, adjudication & arbitration support
OnTender, an affiliate of QuanSur, is the electronic answer to the cumbersome tender process for new building projects, minor works and alterations, reducing risk while saving time and cost.
Projects tendered to prequalified contractors and vendors
Industry standard professional and contracting agreements
Occupational health & safety documentation
Compliance with national building regulations
Tools for monthly valuations, certificates & variation orders
People avoid contracts, and ultimately pay the price for not having them. Our Legal division builds a custom, flexible risk matrix that determines your unique pricing and contracting strategy, so you get the best contract at the best price for your risk profile.
Custom risk matrix and contracting strategy
Best fit pricing strategy for your risk profile
Contractual advice on your rights under signed contracts
As an affiliate of Integrated Project Consultants (IPC), we facilitate your project as Development Manager using BIM, state of the art systems for planning, drawing, specifying and costing, from inception through building in use.
Six stages of cost certainty, without interruption.
01
Consult before you build
We start with your business and objectives: market conditions, escalation forecasts, finance options, investment possibilities and the professional team your project needs. Informed decisions begin here.
We identify, estimate and collate every cost to develop an overall budget, with in depth feasibility studies and cash flow predictions at the degree of accuracy your stage of design allows.
Comprehensive, accurate BoQs let you calculate fair and exact tender prices. Through OnTender, your project goes out to prequalified contractors with the correct legal agreements and safety documentation in place.
A custom risk matrix determines your unique pricing and contracting strategy, the best contract at the best price for your risk profile, with your rights protected before a spade hits the ground.
Deliverable · Signed contract, risk matrix & insurance verification
05
Cost control during construction
Monthly progress valuations, payment certificates, variation order evaluation and financial reporting, with every critical metric visible on your dashboard while the works proceed.
A statement of final account summarises every cost charge to arrive at the final project sum. Should a dispute arise, we assist with mediation, adjudication or arbitration as experienced expert witnesses.
Deliverable · Final account, close out documentation & peace of mind
Already built?
It's not too late for surety
If your project is complete but the numbers don't feel right, our Construction Audit determines what the project should have cost, comparing tender, contract and billing. If you've been overcharged, or short paid as a contractor, we help you recover what's due.
Selected projects and sectors where QuanSur and its directors have delivered cost certainty, from the Western Cape to the world.
Portfolio
Across every sector of the built environment
We share more pictures than testimonials, our clients' completed projects speak for themselves.
Public Sector
Ubuntu Primary School
New primary school · with NOH Architects
R15.1m final account (2024/25)
Residential
Vista Bonita
12 storey residential block, 72 units · Diaz Strand, Mossel Bay
Final account R49.5m
Residential
Meade Gardens
114 units, two and three bedroom · George South
Final account R20.9m
Community
JAM Hub: Jabulani Safe Hub
Development for Jabulani Africa Ministries
R9.6m (2022/23)
Compliance
Various Clinics: Metro 2
Alterations & additions for fire compliance · 7 clinics
Programme value R60m · ongoing
Public Sector
DTPW / WCED Final Account & Close Out
Final account & project close out programme · Western Cape
10 years of projects reconciled
Education
Paarl Boys High: Capital Projects
Capital works programme · Paarl
Quantity surveying services
Education
Western Cape Schools
Turfhall PS · Crestway SS · Pelican Park High
Public sector education infrastructure
Residential
Private Residences & Estates
Atlantic Beach · Val de Vie · Yzerfontein & more
Cost planning to final account
Client Stories
What clients ask us to do
We haven't collected polished testimonials, but these are the real outcomes clients return for.
Client Assist
"Have I paid too much?"
We compare your project's real cost against the tender quote and building contract, identify any overcharging on the Bills of Quantities, and advise on claiming it back, so you only pay what is rightfully due.
Financiers, owners & developers
Contractor Assist
"I haven't been paid what I earned."
We prove work completed according to the agreements in place, value the short payment, and assist through settlement negotiation or arbitration, so you walk away with your rightful final payment.
Main contractors & subcontractors
Add your project to this page
Consult with us before you build, or before you settle.
What South African property owners get wrong before breaking ground: where budgets fail, what a QS actually does, and how to tell if you were overcharged.
Home / Articles / The Real Cost of Building Without a QS
QuanSur Article
The Real Cost of Building Without a Quantity Surveyor
What South African property owners get wrong before breaking ground.
Most cost overruns on South African building projects are not caused by bad contractors. They are caused by a budget that was never a budget in the first place: a number the client hoped for, an architect's rough guess, or a contractor's quote priced off incomplete drawings. By the time the truth surfaces, the concrete is poured and the client's leverage is gone.
This article explains where budgets actually break, what a Quantity Surveyor does that no one else on the professional team does, and how to tell whether you are being overcharged on a project already underway.
Where budgets break
The four moments where money is lost
01
Inception: the number that was never tested
A client decides they can spend R12 million. An architect designs to that brief. Nobody has independently estimated whether the design can be built for R12 million in current market conditions. The failure is structural: an architect is paid to design, a contractor is paid to build, and neither is paid to be the client's cost conscience. A feasibility study and a properly ranged building cost estimate, done before design is locked, is the cheapest money you will ever spend on a project. Changing a line on a drawing costs nothing. Changing a wall costs everything.
02
Tender: pricing apples against oranges
Without a Bill of Quantities, every contractor prices a different building. One assumes 30mm screed, another assumes 50mm. One includes the retaining structure, another prices it as a provisional sum. The client picks the lowest number and inherits every exclusion buried in it. A Bill of Quantities forces all tenderers to price the same measured scope. It converts a comparison of guesses into a comparison of rates, and becomes the instrument that prices variations later, which is where the second wave of cost escalation usually arrives.
03
Construction: valuations nobody is checking
Monthly progress payments are the mechanism by which a project quietly runs out of money. Overvalued work in month three is money the client cannot recover in month eleven. Materials on site get certified but never installed. Variations get instructed verbally and priced retrospectively, always in the contractor's favour. Independent monthly valuations, cash flow reporting against the original projection, and formal variation pricing are not administrative overheads. They are the only real time control the client has.
04
Final account: the settlement nobody prepared for
Most disputes at final account stage are not disputes about entitlement. They are disputes about record keeping. The party with the measured record, the priced variations, and the certified valuations wins. The party arguing from memory loses.
The role, unpacked
What a Quantity Surveyor actually does
The role is widely misunderstood as "the person who counts bricks." In practice the QS is the only member of the professional team whose entire mandate is the client's money.
Before you build
Building cost estimates at increasing degrees of accuracy as information firms up
Financial feasibility studies
Escalation forecasting and market condition advice
Cash flow projections against the construction programme
When you appoint
Bills of Quantities in the form appropriate to the project: full measured bills, bills of provisional quantities, schedules of rates, or performance based bills
Advice on tender type: open, selected, invited, or negotiated
Vetting and procurement of contractors, subcontractors and suppliers
Tender evaluation on a like for like basis
While you build
Monthly progress valuations and cost control
Variation pricing and schedules of materials
Quality inspection reporting
Programme and cost reconciliation
After you build
Final account preparation
Construction audits to establish whether costs charged were fair
Insurance valuations and claim reporting
Expert witness services in arbitration and litigation
Where the industry is heading
The BIM shift: cost modelling instead of cost reporting
Traditional quantity surveying is retrospective. Drawings are issued, quantities are measured, a bill is produced, and by then the design decisions are already made.
Building Information Modelling changes the sequence. When the model carries the quantity data, cost consequences surface at the moment of design rather than weeks later. A client can see what a change in slab thickness or facade specification does to the budget while the decision is still reversible.
This matters most in the early phases, where the ability to influence cost is highest and the actual expenditure is lowest. The practical value of BIM to a client is not the 3D visualisation. It is the compression of the feedback loop between design intent and financial reality.
Already built?
"The project is finished and I think I paid too much"
This is a more common position than most owners admit to. It is also recoverable.
A construction audit reconstructs what the work should have cost using industry accepted measurement and rates, then tests that against what was actually certified and paid. It identifies overmeasurement, duplicated items, unjustified variations, and rates applied outside the contract.
Three outcomes are possible: the pricing was fair and you have certainty; there is a quantifiable overcharge that can be recovered through negotiation; or the dispute requires mediation, arbitration, or litigation, where a registered Quantity Surveyor can act as expert witness.
The window is not indefinite. Contractual time bars and prescription periods apply. If you suspect a problem, the cost of finding out is a fraction of the cost of being wrong.
There is persistent confusion about QS fees, largely because the profession has multiple service tiers that frequently overlap.
Fees are typically based on the recommended scales published by the South African Council for the Quantity Surveying Profession (SACQSP), then adjusted for the realities of the specific project. Percentages vary meaningfully depending on:
Whether services are combined across roles
Whether the project involves repetition
Whether it is new build or additions and alterations
The type of building contract and tender document used
The extent of engineering involvement
In practice, most appointments involve more than one role, often one full service and one reduced service, which is why a fixed published percentage rarely describes what a client will actually pay. Negotiated fees against a defined scope are the norm.
The fee is not a cost of building. It is an insurance premium against the far larger cost of building badly.
Before you appoint
Choosing a Quantity Surveyor: five questions worth asking
1
Are they registered?Professional registration with SACQSP, and ideally MRICS, is the baseline. Anyone can call themselves a cost consultant.
2
What is their experience in your building type?Retirement developments, residential apartments, public infrastructure and industrial work carry different risk profiles.
3
Can they act as expert witness if it goes wrong?A firm without dispute credibility is less useful precisely when you need them most.
4
Do they work in BIM?If your design team is modelling and your QS is not, you lose the early phase cost feedback that makes the model worth building.
5
What reporting will you actually receive, and how often?Monthly cost reporting that arrives six weeks late is not cost control.
The single decision that matters most
Appoint the cost consultant before the design is finished, not after the tenders come in
By the time you are comparing contractor prices, you have already made most of the decisions that determine what the building costs. The professional whose job is your money should be in the room while those decisions are still open.
QuanSur (Pty) Ltd provides quantity surveying, development management, construction audit and expert witness services from Tygerfalls, Bellville, with a combined 170+ years of quantity surveying experience across South Africa and further afield. Consult with us before you build, so you can make informed decisions while they are still decisions.
Ready to protect your budget?
Consult with us before you build, so you can make informed decisions while they are still decisions.
Registered professionals with real construction experience, leading every engagement from first estimate to final account.
Jaco van der Westhuizen
Director
PrQS · MRICS · PMAQS · MBA (USB)
Jaco is the founder and Director of QuanSur and several companies in the building industry. He has been actively involved in the industry for approximately 24 years, in both construction and quantity surveying.
His experience spans the residential, commercial and industrial real estate sectors, as well as the public and voluntary sectors, covering quantity surveying, project management, fiscal control and legal/audit work including dispute resolution, mediation, adjudication and arbitration.
Amanda Dreyer
Administrative Support / PA
Administration · Tender Research · Project Close Out
Amanda has worked in the quantity surveying industry for the past 13 years. She supports the day to day operations of the office, handling administrative requests and queries from senior management, tender research, and keeping the project database up to date.
She works closely with the quantity surveyors across residential real estate and public sector projects, and supports project close out and administration.
Gerdus Cloete
Professional Quantity Surveyor
PrQS · B.Sc. Hons (QS) (NMMU)
Gerdus is a Professional Quantity Surveyor with consultancy experience on an assortment of standalone and clustered projects, with contract values ranging from R7 million to R279 million.
He is skilled in both conventional and specialised quantity surveying services across residential real estate, private residential and public sector work, including cost advice and planning, tender and procurement, contractual compliance and technical audits.
