Solicitor negligence case study
The Company
P Limited was a newly formed company involved in residential property development. It was interested in buying a house comprising of 4 flats and car parking spaces and converting it to create 9 flats and 7 car parking spaces. The development was dependent upon mortgage finance. Although the property had a frontage to one road because the car park was at the rear, access to it was via a separate road.
The Objective
P Limited instructed a local firm of solicitors to act on its behalf. Contracts were exchanged for the purchase. As a result of enquiries raised by the company, who P Limited had agreed to sell the property onto, it became apparent that there was no right of vehicular access to the property. We were instructed to take action against the solicitors for damages for professional negligence. In the course of our investigation we the discovered that the solicitors had done a local search against the wrong road and had completely failed to make any enquiries of the seller of the property as to how access to the car park was obtained.
In the absence of vehicular access to the property, the offer of mortgage finance was withdrawn such that P Limited was unable to complete the purchase. By the time we were instructed the seller’s solicitors had served a Notice to Complete and in due course the deposit of in excess of £110,000 was forfeited. As P Limited was a fairly new company, it was important to resolve this matter as soon as possible to ensure that it could continue in the business of property development.
The Result
We did a detailed letter of claim to the solicitors’ insurers setting out the full history of the matter, our analysis of the law and enclosing a bundle of the relevant documents to enable them, if they chose to do so to settle the claim rapidly.
Following receipt of the other side’s response admitting negligence, we were able to negotiate a quick settlement of the claim which included not only a substantial amount of damages to cover the forfeiture of the deposit and other wasted expenses, but also payment of our client’s legal costs and a full indemnity if at any stage in future the seller of the property pursued a claim for damages against P Limited.
Who to contact
Paul Grimwood
Partner, Head of Civil Litigation
Email
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