Below are details of recent cases where a professional adviser has been found to be negligent.

• Firms of solicitors and their partners had been negligent in failing to draft the will of a testator in accordance with his instructions. They had also given negligent advice to her concerning the tax treatment of national savings certificates held by his estate and her entitlement to a widow’s pension.
• A firm of architects was guilty of fraudulent misrepresentation by failing to inform its client that, shortly before entering a contract, the project leader for that contract had resigned. The firm had known of the importance of the project leader’s involvement to the client and that knowledge of his departure might lead the client to look elsewhere.
• Where a firm of solicitors had given negligent advice to a client concerning his company’s entitlement to compensation for termination of an agency agreement the client was entitled to damages from the solicitors for breach of contract and professional negligence.
• A surveyor had failed to notice that a rigid inflatable boat was not a standard boat, did not have a technical file and was therefore not capable of the necessary Maritime and Coastguard Agency coding, and the surveyor was therefore negligent in advising the boat’s owners that it complied with all the relevant requirements.
• A company in liquidation was entitled to damages from two of its directors and from a firm of accountants in circumstances where the directors were shown to be in breach of their fiduciary duty to the company and where the firm had failed to adequately carry out an audit of the company’s financial status.
• The respondent solicitors had been negligent in their handling of a share sale agreement. The instant was a loss of a chance case and the appellant shareholders were entitled to 20 per cent of the losses claimed.
• In the circumstances two barristers were under a duty to advise a client about a potential claim even though it fell outside the scope of the matters on which they were instructed and their failure to do so was a breach of duty.
• Structural engineers had failed to exercise reasonable care and skill in recommending the removal of trees situated in close proximity to a property, which had resulted in structural damage to the property and diminution in value.
• Chartered surveyors had been negligent in the conduct of negotiations for leases of land for use as airport car parking because they had failed to obtain a turnover rent. The appropriate measure of damages for the lost chance of negotiating a turnover rent was the diminution in value of the reversions assessed as at the transaction date.
• An insurance broker had been in breach of duty where he had not informed the insured of any of the insurer’s terms and conditions, and where the insured had not been in any way alerted to the potentially disastrous consequences if a statement in the quotation request, which had not been supplied to them, was inaccurate.
• Architects were liable to the claimant lessee of a warehouse in circumstances where the architects’ negligent design of the rainwater drainage system had led to a flood that caused the claimant substantial financial loss.
• A trade union had been negligent in failing to advise a member who had been dismissed from his employment to lodge a claim form or appeal against his dismissal, causing him to fail to present a complaint to the employment tribunal within the three-month time limit.
• A firm of architects had breached its duty to its employer, a major retailer, by proceeding with its original recommended approach to construction works, the redevelopment of its flagship store, when it should have realised that approach would result in a costs overrun.
• An independent financial adviser was in breach of duty of care and in breach of his obligation to exercise reasonable skill and care when providing pensions and financial advice to a client by failing to clarify the variable nature of with-profit annuities and advise on the lack of protection provided by the Policyholders Protection Act 1975.
• A surveyor who failed properly to enquire about the status of planning permission, in regard to property held by a client bank, was in negligent breach of duty to the bank in respect of resulting financial loss.
• A firm of solicitors was liable to pay a former client basic damages and wasted expenses due to the negligent advice it gave on the planning status of a building in the course of purchasing the building for the client.
• Tax accountants were negligent in failing to advise a client who was resident, but not ordinarily resident, in the UK for tax purposes of the obvious tax mitigation solution of having his employment earnings paid into a Channel Island bank account.
• Where a surveyor’s report negligently failed to advise further investigations to ascertain whether past structural movement had ceased or was continuing, the correct measure of damages was the difference between the purchase price and the open-market value of the property in its true condition at the valuation date in light of all the evidence available to the court at the date of assessment.
• An insurance broker who failed to exercise a reasonable standard of care in relation to its clients affairs was liable for the full extent of the loss resulting from compensation claims made on the basis of pension mis-selling.
• An estate agent had a duty to exercise reasonable care when marketing a property for sale and, if in the course of so doing, he became aware of any significant event in the market that might influence his principal’s instructions, to inform the principal and advise him accordingly.
• Negligent advice given by solicitors about the time limits imposed by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 had prevented the claimants applying to the court for a new tenancy. Since they had been unable to negotiate an agreement in the terms that would have been awarded by the court the negligence had caused the claimants’ failure to enter into a new lease.
• A house buyer who employed a surveyor to investigate whether a property in the countryside was seriously affected by aircraft noise was, in principle, entitled to recover non-pecuniary damages for distress and inconvenience from that surveyor for his negligent failure to discover that the property was so affected.
• The claimants were entitled to damages in respect of a surveyor’s negligence in failing to observe and properly advise on damp problems in the flat they had purchased.
• Surveyor had negligently failed to observe or report the fact that there were serious structural problems in a residential property arising primarily from the combination of a masonry structure in one half of the building and a wooden structure in the other.