The Negligent Surveyor

Date: December 2007

Before buying his house a client instructed a surveyor to carry out a full structural survey. The surveyor duly reported on the condition of the property pointing out some minor cracks to the external walls of the house, some problems with the roof tiles, guttering and some rotten window sills. The client used the report to reduce the price of the house due to these defects and ultimately bought the house.

Sometime later, during the summer, he noticed that bees were eating away some of the cement between the bricks and that in some areas there were holes right through into the cavity wall of the house.

We instructed a new surveyor to report on this problem and he advised that there was a long-standing masonry bee infestation and that the bees were eating away the cement such that the whole of the brickwork required repointing with new cement. The original surveyor was negligent in that he had failed to notice the holes in the cement and that it had been eaten away and also that the pointing between the bricks was soft and friable. His report should have specified these defects so the client would have had the opportunity of further reducing the price for the house by the anticipated cost of the work, or withdrawing from the purchase entirely.

Compensation is not necessarily the cost of repairing the work. In this case the new surveyor had to assess what the value of the house was with the masonry bee infestation and the defective pointing. Many potential purchasers would not have bought the house with this problem due to the noisy, dusty and lengthy remedial work that is necessary. This considerably reduced the value of the house.

A claim was made for the difference between the price paid for the house and the value of the house with the defects and assessed by the surveyor who we had instructed. It was necessary to issue proceedings against the original surveyor's firm as they refused to make a realistic settlement offer. Experts' reports were exchanged and eventually we secured an offer of compensation from the surveyor's insurance company which our client was prepared to accept and we also obtained payment of the client's legal costs.

For more information contact David Hall

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