SURVEYOR HELD TO OWE DUTY OF CARE TO PURCHASER

Merrett v Babb, The Times, 2 March 2001

In Merrett v Babb , The Times, 2 March 2001, the Court of Appeal held that the defendant surveyor was personally liable to the purchaser of a house in respect of a survey of the house which he had negligently prepared while acting for his employers. In this respect there would appear to be an important distinction between a director of a company and an employee. The courts have been reluctant to conclude that a director of a company assumes a personal responsibility to a client of the company. But it would appear that a surveyor who acts for a firm of surveyors is vulnerable in his personal capacity to an action in negligence, especially where he signs the original report in his own name and, for the purposes of s13 of the Building Societies Act 1986, is the person who was competent to value the property and was not disqualified from doing so.