Survey – Structural survey prior to purchase – Surveyor failing to look at geological map of area – Purchaser of property completing in reliance on survey – Subsidence eventually causing damage to house – Negligence of surveyor -Judge awarding damages to plaintiff – Whether failure to look at map causative of damage – Appeal dismissed.
The plaintiffs instructed the defendant, a chartered surveyor, who had conducted many surveys in the area and knew it well, to provide a standard structural report upon a property, Walpole House, Knotty Green, Buckinghamshire. As a result of the report, which concluded that there were no serious structural faults, the plaintiffs bought the house. In fact the house was sited in an area where, overlying upper chalk, there was an outcrop of reading beds which, according to the description contained in the geological survey map of the area, consisted of "mottled clay: sand with pebbles at base". Trees close to the house were removed and that factor, together with the propensity of movement in clay soil giving rise to subsidence and heave, resulted in damage to the house.
Three years after completion serious movement was taking place. The house became uninhabitable and had to be rebuilt. The plaintiffs claimed damages alleging that the defendant had acted negligently in the preparation of his report. The judge found for the plaintiffs and assessed the amount of damages as the diminution in value of the property being £101,666. The defendant appealed on the ground, inter alia, that the surveyor had correctly reported all there was to be seen at the house when he conducted his survey, and that his negligence in failing to refer to the geological map was not causative of the damage suffered by the plaintiffs.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
The judge had found that, had the surveyor looked at the geological map, he would have determined that the house was situated on or close to the reading beds and that, having done so, he would have concluded that there was a material risk of the existence of a clay subsoil which he would have brought to the attention of the plaintiffs and warned them of the risks of dangers to the foundations if the subsoil contained clay. The plaintiffs, on evidence accepted by the judge, would not have proceeded with the purchase had they known that there were any structural defects requiring remedial works of any nature. However, although the survey had been carried out correctly, the plaintiffs had properly made out the chain of causation. The defendant’s negligence in failing to look at the geological map was causative of the plaintiffs’ damage because it was the presence of the reading beds beneath the house, marked on the map, which was the cause of the damage to the house.
Richard Seymour QC (instructed by Mills & Reeve, of Cambrdige) appeared for the appellant; Howard Palmer (instructed by Merricks, of Ipswich) appeared for the respondents.
