Plaintiff entering contract to purchase property on completion of works – Agreement providing for appointment of architect – Architect inspecting property unaware of terms of agreement – Architect writing to vendor – Whether architect owed duty of care in tort to plaintiff – Whether architect’s letter relied on by plaintiff – High Court giving judgment for plaintiff on preliminary issues – Court of Appeal allowing architect’s appeal
The plaintiff agreed to purchase from the first and second defendants a property at The Grove, Charleston Road, St Austell. The first defendant was to extend and convert the property into a care home for 30 residents. The purchase price was £850,000, to include the specified works. Completion was to be on the earlier of November 25 1992 or on the issue of a final certificate of completion of works by an appointed architect who was also to supervise the works. It was also agreed, inter alia, that the plaintiff could require completion of the sale by a specified date and retain out of the purchase price a sum in respect of incomplete work. An architect, the third defendant, was engaged to supervise the construction but he was not an appointed architect under the contract. On January 13 1993 the architect wrote to the first and second defendants that there were two weeks’ work to complete worth £25,000 and that all works were satisfactory to date. On January 27 1993 contractual completion took place pursuant to a 14-day notice to complete. The plaintiff issued proceedings against the defendants alleging defective works. The judge held, hearing preliminary issues, that the plaintiff had relied on the architect’s letter and that the architect had owed the plaintiff a duty of care in tort. The architect appealed.
Held The appeal was allowed.
1. The architect’s estimates of two weeks’ work outstanding and £25,000 had been overtaken by events well before completion and if the plaintiff had been informed that some of the existing work had been defective there was no reason why she would have delayed completion or have negotiated a retention. Therefore the plaintiff had not relied on the letter.
2. Per Simon Brown LJ: In any event, the architect had not owed the plaintiff a duty of care. Although he would only have owed a duty of care if the letter had been the final certificate, he had believed that he would return to the site for a final inspection and only then would the sale be completed. Therefore the architect could not have anticipated that the plaintiff would have relied on the letter.
3. Per Morritt LJ and Sir Brian Neill: At its highest the architect’s duty had been to supply information for the purpose of enabling someone else to decide upon a course of action, and in the circumstances it could not be inferred that he had known the purpose for which the plaintiff had relied on the advice. Therefore the architect would not have owed the plaintiff a duty of care even if he had not been due to carry out a final inspection.
Rupert Jackson QC and Ian Holtum (instructed by S J Cornish, of Tiverton) appeared for the appellant third defendant; James Guthrie QC and Hugh Parker (instructed by Gill Akaster, of Plymouth) appeared for the respondent plaintiff.
