The defendant solicitors had negligently in 1986 failed to advise purchasers that there was no good title to part (an extension over an adjoining property) of a leasehold flat which they were buying. The problem came to light in 1988 when they wished to sell. They were unable to do so. In 1990 a property company, which had in the interim acquired the freeholds of both properties, registered the titles; and eventually in 1992 the original purchasers of the flat successfully registered the leasehold title to their flat, which thereby became sellable. The solicitors applied to adduce further evidence in negligence proceedings then current in order to rely on these subsequent events, it being said that the plaintiffs would otherwise be overcompensated.
Held: Such subsequent events were ‘irrelevant’ to the issue which had to be determined. Thus the Master assessing the actual value of the lease with a defective title in 1986 could not properly pay regard to events which were taking place in 1992.
Hobhouse LJ emphasised that: ‘Cases of this kind depend on their own facts.’
Beldam LJ, Hobhouse LJ
[1996] PNLR 361
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Bacciottini and Another v Gotelee and Goldsmith (A Firm) CA 18-Mar-2016
A property subject to a planning condition was purchased by the appellant under the advice of the respondent, who failed to notify him of the existence of a planning condition. The judge had awarded the claimant pounds 250 being the cost of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Damages, Professional Negligence
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.561224
