Extent of surveyor’s liability

In Tiuta International Ltd v De Villiers Surveyors Ltd [2017] UKSC 77 the Supreme Court held, allowing an appeal from the Court of Appeal (on which see our August/September 2016 issue pp 8–10), that the liability of the defendant surveyors was confined to the losses sustained by the claimant as a result of additional lending made under a second loan facility after a valuation alleged to have been conducted negligently by the defendant and that liability did not extend to losses attributable to advances made under the original loan facility (assuming there to have been no negligence in relation to the valuation carried out in relation to that facility). The discharge of the indebtedness under the first facility out of the advance made under the second facility was not a collateral benefit because it did not confer a benefit on the claimant and so there was no question of either taking it into account or of leaving it out of account. It was only the new money advanced under the facility that ‘made a difference’ and it was that sum that fixed any liability of the defendant.