Cases - Lloyd v Butler
Record details
- Name
- Lloyd v Butler
- Date
- [1990]
- Citation
- 2 EGLR 155
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Negligence in valuations and surveys
- Summary
-
The Eley case demonstrates that the 'follow the trail' principle does not always have to be taken literally, and that a surveyor may fulfil his or her legal duty by giving a proper report on what has been discovered and recommending further, more detailed, investigations. The Lloyd case is one in which this principle was recognised in the context of a mortgage valuation.
The judge specifically acknowledged that a surveyor does not necessarily have to follow up every trail to discover whether there is trouble or the risk of trouble. But where there is evidence of actual or potential trouble, the surveyor must report in a way that clearly alerts the client, and anyone else who is entitled to rely on the report, to the risk. The defendant surveyor, in carrying out a mortgage valuation of a modest pre-war semi-detached house, had failed in this duty in respect of a range of serious defects, including dry rot, woodworm, defective electrical wiring and central heating pipework, all of which should have been the subject of specific warnings in his report.