Cases - Allen v Ellis & Co
Record details
- Name
- Allen v Ellis & Co
- Date
- [1990]
- Citation
- 11 EG 78
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Negligence in valuations and surveys
- Summary
-
The defendants carried out a full building survey for the claimant purchaser of a pre-war detached house. They were held negligent for describing the property's detached garage as 'brick built in nine-inch brickwork and in satisfactory condition', when it was in fact built of breeze block and had a 50-year old corrugated asbestos roof that was brittle, fragile and in need of replacement. A year after moving in, the purchaser stood on the roof to investigate a leak, fell through it and was injured. It was held, somewhat surprisingly, that what the purchaser had done was a foreseeable consequence of the surveyor's negligence, and the surveyor was liable for his injuries.