Cases - Watts v Morrow

Record details

Name

Watts v Morrow

Date

[1991]; [1991]

Citation

2 EGLR 152; 4 AII ER 937, CA

Keywords

Negligence in valuations and surveys

Summary

In holding the defendant surveyor guilty of negligence, for failing in the course of a building survey to discover a number of significant defects in an old farmhouse, the judge was highly critical of his method of working. The defendant, in accordance with his usual practice, had dictated his actual report during his inspection of the property. As the judge pointed out, this was contrary to the relevant RICS guidance, which suggested that a surveyor should make notes on site and subsequently give these further reflective consideration when using them as the basis of his actual report.

The judge said that:

'If the defendant had said that because of the limited nature of the inspection he could not express any view about the floor, he could not have been criticised .... On the inspection he did make, he could not reasonably express the views which he did express.'

The Court of Appeal held that the purchaser was entitled to damages of £15,000, not £34,000 - the higher figure could only have been justified if the surveyor had guaranteed, as a term of the survey contract, that the property was free of any defect not mentioned in his report.