Cases - Merivale Moore plc v Strutt & Parker

Record details

Name

Merivale Moore plc v Strutt & Parker

Date

[1999]; [1999]

Citation

CILL 1513, CA; 2 EGLR, CA

Keywords

Expert witness - Negligence in valuations and surveys

Summary

The defendants, in valuing an office development property which was held on a lease with 46 years to run, adopted a yield of 7.5%. The Court of Appeal held that the defendants had not been negligent in selecting this figure; however, they were negligent in failing to warn their developer clients that, in view of the absence of suitable comparables (that is, properties on medium-term leases), the choice of an appropriate yield was a more than usually risky exercise.

The defendant valuers sought to argue that, before their valuation of property could be condemned as outside the range that could be reached by any competent valuer, and therefore negligent, the claimants would have to produce expert evidence to that effect.

Although the court agreed that, with such evidence, the judge's task is 'substantially eased', it would not accept

'... that the adduction of such evidence is a necessary precondition to the finding of negligence on the part of a valuer ... it is still open to the judge in a suitable case to hold that the valuation is so far removed from what was the true value of the property that it must be regarded as a valuation that was outside the limits open to a competent valuer, without specific professional evidence being given of what those limits were'.