The defendant firm of solicitors acted on the sale of property, but failed to notify a purchaser that he was in a contract race and that another contract had been sent out. The claimant would have been able to exchange, and to have acquired the property.
Held: The defendants had failed to follow their own professional rules and were liable, even though in this case the damages were minimal in the absence of any proof of loss of profits.
Chadwick LJ said: ‘This was a property with development potential. It is common ground that this property was no longer to be used as a village hall. It would have to be used for some other purpose; and there would have to be some development so that it could be used for that purpose. The question was: for what development could planning permission be obtained and how valuable would the property be on completion of that development? But those are the factors which a properly informed market will take into account in fixing the market value of property. The profit potential of the property is an element to be taken into account in fixing its market value. It is not suggested that there was anything special about this property to the appellants as purchasers. It is not suggested that there were not other developers in the market for property of this nature who could have made a proper assessment of the value of this property. The problem for the appellants in the present case is that they never sought to persuade the judge – and never adduced evidence to establish – that the market value of this property, Dukes Hall, was anything greater than the pounds 67,500 which the Parish Council was seeking. It is for those reasons that the claim for loss of profits is one which the court could not entertain in this case. . . In the present case, there is no evidence that these appellants would not have been able to purchase other property in the market which they could develop profitably with the use of the money which they did not lay out in the purchase of Dukes Hall. There is no evidence that the respondents, insofar as their duty lay in contract, were aware of any special circumstances which made it impossible for the respondents to employ their funds in the ordinary course of their business, or of any circumstances which suggested that this property was being sold at an under-value. Indeed, in the circumstances that they were acting for the vendors, the Parish Council, it would be most unlikely that they would regard the property as being sold at an under- value rather than at market price’.
Judges:
Chadwick LJ
Citations:
Gazette 30-Mar-2000, 2000 BNLR 616
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Joyce v Bowman Law Ltd ChD 18-Feb-2010
The claimant asserted negligence by the defendant licensed conveyancers in not warning him of the effect of an option in the contract. He had been advised that it would allow him to choose to buy additional land, but it was in fact a put option. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Professional Negligence, Land, Damages
Updated: 08 April 2022; Ref: scu.82513