Purchase of property — Rights of way — Planning authority requiring change of layout to connect property to main road — Plaintiffs requesting advice from solicitor — Request contained in letter asking for answers to three specific questions — Solicitor replying to questions asked — Whether solicitor under duty to give advice beyond answers to questions — Whether solicitor negligent not to have warned plaintiffs of effect of lease — Extent of solicitor’s retainer — Judgment for solicitor
The plaintiffs purchased the freehold of a property, Amersfort, which enjoyed rights of way to the main road under an indenture dated July 10 1910. They applied for planning permission to change the permitted use residential to that of residential school or college. The local planning authority required an alteration to the lay out of the access road as a condition of the grant of planning consent. The plaintiffs entered into negotiations for an agreement with the owner of the subservient tenement, Berkhamsted Golf Club, and heads of terms were agreed for the alteration of the layout of the access road to comply with the planning consent. These were not shown to the solicitor in the defendant firm subsequently retained by the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs asked for answers to three specific questions concerning the proposals put forward by the golf club’s solicitors and enclosed a copy of the draft lease.
The plaintiffs claimed damages for negligence against the solicitor contending that the solicitor had failed to warn them that the draft lease was, inter alia, defective and its terms uncertain and contained no reference to the continuance of the plaintiffs’ rights of way under the 1910 indenture. The rights were due to expire before the expiry of the lease and would leave Amersfort landlocked.
The solicitor contended that the advice sought had contained three specific questions which had been answered diligently, that any other considerations had been outside the terms of the retainer and that he did not have a duty to consider matters beyond the three questions.
Held Judgment for the defendant.
The extent of the legal duty in any given situation was a question for the court: see per Oliver J in Midland Bank Trust Co Ltd v Hett, Stubbs & Kemp [1979] Ch 384 at p402C. It depended upon the terms of the retainer under which the solicitor had acted. The defendant had been consulted by the plaintiffs previously for advice on an ad hoc basis concerning their commercial activities. In the instant case the defendant had been asked by letter to answer three specific questions, which he had answered, but he had not been asked to review the lease generally. There was no implied duty upon the solicitor to go beyond his instructions and it would not be right to hold the solicitor accountable for bringing to the plaintiffs’ attention any unusual features which were matters beyond the three questions.
Philip Rainey (instructed by Rowe & Maw) appeared for the plaintiffs; Andrew Warnock (instructed by Merricks, of Chelmsford) appeared for the defendant.
