Cases - Steward v Rapley

Record details

Name

Steward v Rapley

Date

[1989]

Citation

15 EG 198

Keywords

Negligence in valuations and surveys

Summary

The claimant house purchasers claimed damages from their surveyor on the ground that he had negligently failed to discover and report on an outbreak of dry rot. In assessing damages, the Court of Appeal expressed its agreement with the basic measure of damages described above. However, the court accepted that, when it comes to establishing the 'true value' of a defective property, it may be quite legitimate for the court (and the expert witnesses) to begin with its value in an apparently undamaged condition and then to deduct the cost of necessary repairs from that figure. Where this approach to valuation is adopted, it will effectively result in the same figure for 'difference in value' as would have been produced by 'cost of repair'.