So long as you take reasonable care to obtain the market value, you cannot be blamed if it is subsequently shown that a better price would have been obtained by delaying the sale, or by first improving the properties, say by obtaining certain planning consents. Similarly, you are under no duty to carry on a business with a view to selling the property as a going concern, though if you do so decide you must take reasonable care in its management: see Hadjipanayi v Yeldon [2000] EGCS 122.
A decision to sell a particular property as part of a portfolio will not, as was held in Silven, afford grounds for complaint unless it was one that no reasonable property professional would have taken.
Related item:
Q When appointed receiver of mortgaged properties, my company is frequently engaged to attend to their sale. In what circumstances would we be answerable to the borrower mortgagor for allegedly failing to obtain the full value?
A The duty owed by you to the mortgagor is no greater, and no less, than that owed to him by the mortgagee: see Silven Properties Ltd v Royal Bank of Scotland plc [2002] EWHC 1976 (Ch); [2002] 41 EG 177 (CS). The relevant rules are derived, not from the tort of negligence, but from the equitable principles that seek to strike a balance between the respective interests of the mortgagee and the mortgagor.
So long as you take reasonable care to obtain the market value, you cannot be blamed if it is subsequently shown that a better price would have been obtained by delaying the sale, or by first improving the properties, say by obtaining certain planning consents. Similarly, you are under no duty to carry on a business with a view to selling the property as a going concern, though if you do so decide you must take reasonable care in its management: see Hadjipanayi v Yeldon [2000] EGCS 122.
A decision to sell a particular property as part of a portfolio will not, as was held in Silven, afford grounds for complaint unless it was one that no reasonable property professional would have taken.
Related item: PP 2003/15