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Choose the level of support
Capital matters, but it is not the first distinction. The more useful question is whether you want a method you can apply yourself, an independent test of a specific decision, or somebody independent taking responsibility across the wider process.
01
The Framework
£450
I want to make better property decisions myself.
The decision-making method: how to test the property, the assumptions behind it and the commercial incentives of whoever is presenting it. You apply the analysis yourself.
See Framework details ↓02
Property Decision Audit
from £1,500 · £3,000 with a forward plan
I have a property or proposition in front of me and want it independently tested.
For something you are being asked to buy, something you are about to commit to, or something you already own and have started to question. I test the property, the numbers, the assumptions and the way it has been sold to you. My fee is the same whether the recommendation is proceed or reject.
At £3,000, the Forward Plan is added where the question is not only “should I do this?” but “what should I be doing instead or next?”
See Audit details ↓03
Advisory Mandate
from £12,500
I want someone independent to lead the process.
Ongoing responsibility across strategy, opportunity selection, assessment, negotiation and the acquisition process. I take responsibility across the wider decision rather than testing one isolated property.
See Mandate details ↓The routes overlap deliberately. The right level depends on the scale of the decision, the capital involved and how much responsibility you want to retain yourself.
1
The Risk Filter and Industry Decoder
£450
Self-applied property decision framework
For decisions involving £50k–£500k of capital
Priced as a filter cost, not a content cost.
A typical property decision can put £50,000 to £500,000 of capital to work.
Most free property guides exist to make you more likely to buy something. That isn’t a cynical reading of the genre; it is usually the business model. The guide sits near the top of a funnel, the funnel eventually ends in stock, and the education is produced by someone with an economic interest in what gets bought. It will often teach you enough to feel informed and not quite enough to walk away.
This one is built to do the opposite.
It is a warning document, and its purpose is to make you harder to sell to, including by me.
Do your due diligence is advice nobody has ever been able to act on. This explains how a flat sourcing fee quietly changes which properties get recommended, why incentive packages are usually funded from inside an inflated price, and what a guaranteed rent actually is once you look at who is paying it. Once you can see a mechanism, you can check for it yourself.
Two instruments, applied in sequence. Five factors assess the property. Four assess whether it fits the investor behind it. They produce separate results and are never added together, because a property judgement and a judgement about a person do not belong in the same number. Mortgageability and exit liquidity carry more weight than the rest, because a property nobody can finance and nobody wants to buy from you is not a property with a yield problem. It is a different kind of asset. The point of scoring is that it terminates: it reaches a verdict instead of a feeling.
The Risk Filter assesses the asset. The Industry Decoder assesses the person showing it to you: who gets paid at each stage, which questions the sales process is built to avoid, and where the same word means different things to buyer and seller.
That half is conspicuously absent from most property education, for the obvious reason that the people producing the education are often the people being described.
There is a section on my own fee model, and it invites you to ask the question the rest of the document teaches you to ask. Who is paying this person, when, and for what.
Mortgageability and exit liquidity. Stock durability. Location resilience. Upside potential. True net return after all costs rather than the quoted ones. Investor fit. Portfolio structure. And the economics behind sourcing fees, commissions, guarantees, incentive packages and free advice.
It reads in an afternoon. Underneath that sit the full scoring bands, worked examples across four property types, structured stress tests, the Fit Overlay and a glossary written for the buyer rather than the operator.
It is not legal, mortgage, tax or regulated financial advice, and it is not live market access. It is a decision-making framework, applied by you.
Best suited to
Anyone weighing a first or second acquisition. Anyone holding something they have started to question. Anyone reviewing an opportunity introduced by a sourcer, agent, developer or investment company, who would rather understand how property is sold before being sold to.
2
The independent test of a property decision before you commit to it.
Property Decision Audit from £1,500 · £3,000 with a forward plan
£3,000 with a forward plan
Written audit + walk-through call
Delivered within fifteen working days of receiving complete information
Most investment properties do not arrive neutrally. They arrive through a developer, sourcing company, investment firm, estate agent or introducer with a commercial interest somewhere in the transaction.
That does not make the property wrong.
It does mean the person presenting it to you and the person independently testing it are doing different jobs.
The Property Decision Audit is for the point where you have something specific in front of you and want the property, the numbers, the assumptions and the way it has been sold to you tested before more capital is committed.
If you are about to pay a reservation fee, pay a sourcing fee, exchange on a property, or commit to something you have been introduced to, this is the route designed for that decision.
Finding someone likeable is not the same as receiving independent advice.
What the audit produces
Every audit produces a written recommendation and a call to walk through it. Beyond that, and depending on the question, it may include:
Recommendation categories
Every recommendation falls into one of six categories:
Sometimes the useful question is not only “should I buy this?”
It is “if I do not buy this, what should my capital be doing instead?”
Where the decision extends beyond the individual property, the £3,000 route adds a Forward Plan.
The Forward Plan sets out what your capital should be trying to achieve over the next five to ten years, what kinds of property fit your position, where the main constraints sit, what should be avoided, and how future opportunities should be tested.
The Framework is included so that the logic can be applied after the audit rather than returning you to the market with nothing more useful than a rejected property.
For twelve months after the Forward Plan, I may also share properties that cross my desk in the ordinary course of advisory work where they have cleared the Framework and appear consistent with your plan.
They may be on-market or off-market. Each is shared with the relevant scoring and analysis, including the reasons it may still be wrong for you.
This is not a search on your behalf and no volume is promised. Some months there may be nothing worth sending.
Nobody behind those properties pays me if you buy one, and my fee is the same if you buy none.
The availability of a property is never the reason it passes the test.
Does not include
An active sourcing or property-search mandate, negotiation, mortgage advice, legal advice, tax advice or formal valuation advice.
The Audit is a bounded diagnostic. The Forward Plan gives you a route for what comes next. It does not turn the engagement into an Advisory Mandate.
Best suited to
How the audit works
If the decision benefits from wider strategic work beyond the Audit’s scope, I say so. If it doesn’t, I don’t.
3
Ongoing strategic advice for investors with larger or more complex decisions
Advisory Mandates usually start from £12,500, with final scope agreed in writing.
Ongoing strategic advisory engagement
Full process: brief definition through to completion
Under a mandate, the firm leads the acquisition process on the client’s behalf. This includes defining the acquisition brief, originating and vetting opportunities, conducting due diligence on shortlisted candidates, scoring each option through the Risk Filter, negotiating terms, and overseeing the transaction through to completion. Legal, tax, mortgage, and regulated advice remain with the appropriate professionals throughout.
The fee applies whether the recommendation is to proceed, restructure the brief, or walk away.
The Advisory Mandate is the core of my work.
The Advisory Mandate is my principal engagement, but it is not automatically the right fit for every investor.
Many sourcing firms charge the buyer directly and upfront. That is not inherently a problem. The more important questions are how else the business is paid, how its stock is selected, and whether its commercial model depends on transactions taking place.
Under an Advisory Mandate, the client pays a fixed fee for the agreed work. Lucas James receives no developer commissions, broker referral payments, agent fees or introducer income, and the fee does not depend on any particular property proceeding.
Even a £5,000 sourcing fee represents 10% of £50,000 in deployable capital before tax, legal costs, works and reserves. Where that weakens the underlying investment economics, I will recommend a more proportionate route instead.
Independent property advice. Paid for by you, not by the deal.
Lucas James Property Advisors does not rely on developer commissions, sourcing fees, broker referral payments, or agent referral arrangements.
The advice is paid for by the client.
That matters because the structure of payment shapes the structure of advice.
When the advice is paid for by the deal, the incentive is usually movement.
When the advice is paid for by the investor, the incentive can be judgement.
Sometimes that means proceeding. Sometimes it means renegotiating. Sometimes it means waiting. Sometimes it means walking away.
The role of the advice is not to create activity. It is to improve the quality of the decision before capital is committed.