EWJ June 61 2025 web - Flipbook - Page 17
Bratt v Jones [2025] EWCA Civ 562
The Court of Appeal, on 2 May, handed down its decision in the case of Bratt v Jones, in
respect of which DAC Beachcroft acted on behalf of the successful Defendant/Respondent
valuer, Mr Jones. The judgement provides clarification as to what the test for breach of duty is
in a valuers' negligence case, as well as outlining some obiter dicta thoughts about how the test
might be addressed further by the Supreme Court in a suitable case.
Although the law had seemed fairly settled, the
Claimant in this case was contending that there was
more to be read in those authorities than had previously been detected, and that no specific findings as to
what a valuer had done wrong – beyond reach the
‘wrong’ valuation figure – was necessary to establish
liability. Neither the trial Judge nor the Court of Appeal had any doubt that this was wrong. The parties
had – rightly – proceeded on the basis that there was
a precondition to liability that the valuation had to fall
outside a reasonable bracket. The Court of Appeal
found that this was correct by reference to existing
Court of Appeal authority, but did take the opportunity to set out some thoughts as to whether this was
an approach which ought to withstand scrutiny from
the Supreme Court.
The Law
One of the points in dispute was how the Court
should find breach of duty on behalf of a valuer.
The Claimant argued that, if a valuation is found to
fall outside of what the Court considers to be a reasonable margin of error, then that is prima facie evidence of negligence and a claimant does not have to
take any further steps and does not have to plead or
demonstrate the methodological reasons why the valuation was not reasonably competent. The Claimant
contended that at this stage the ‘evidential burden’
then falls to the defendant valuer who must demonstrate they were not negligent.
The Claimant relied in particular on the cases of
Merivale Moore[1] and Legal & General[2], as authority
that the focus of the enquiry should be exclusively on
the end result, rather than the process followed by the
valuer. While the Claimant accepted that there may
be cases where the valuer escapes a finding of negligence even where its valuation falls outside a reasonable margin – if a defendant can satisfy the evidential
burden upon it to demonstrate that it had not acted
negligently in the circumstances of the case – the
Claimant argued that this would be a rare case and
that the onus was on the Defendant to show that it fell
within this exceptional category.
Background
Mr Bratt, the Claimant, owned a site in Oxfordshire
which had planning consent for 82 houses across
around 10 acres. In June 2013, a developer who had
the option to purchase the site exercised its option,
the parties could not agree a price, and the Defendant
was instructed to value the site in an independent
expert determination.
The Defendant, Mr Jones, carried out a valuation and
assessed the market value of the site at £4.075million.
The resulting purchase price was £3,529,500 which
reflected 90% of the market value, less various deductibles. Mr Jones' exercise included residual and
comparable valuations. In undertaking the comparable assessment, he identified a site which he considered so similar that he placed exclusive reliance on it.
The Defendant elected to rely on this method as the
basis of his valuation of the site as being £4.075million.
He determined that the residual valuation (of
£3.634m) supported this calculation (albeit unbeknown to Mr Jones at that time, the residual valuation
contained an error which would have otherwise
valued the site at around £4.6million).
The Defendant however submitted that, while the
cases showed that a precondition to liability was that the
valuation fell outside a reasonable margin, the underlying requirement for liability must always be the
Bolam principle, namely a finding that the Defendant
acted in an identifiable manner in a way which no reasonably competent valuer could have done. In this
way, the Defendant submitted, valuers cases are no
different to any other professional negligence case,
and a claimant must always plead and prove that the
professional has failed to act in accordance with the
practices of a reasonably competent professional of the
same profession.
Mr Bratt commenced a claim on the basis that Mr
Jones had negligently undervalued the site, alleging
that the site was worth around £8million. This claim
was supported by expert evidence although, unusually, that expert evidence did not include an opinion
as to the reasonable range of opinions which could
have existed.
At trial the Defendant was at pains to emphasise that,
in anything other than the most straightforward cases,
the Court will - in order to arrive at its own ‘true’ valuation of the property - need to carry out a detailed
consideration of the approach and steps taken by the
valuer, which will by necessity include an assessment of
whether such approach and each of the steps were
reasonably competent. The assessment of what is considered to be reasonably competent will often reflect a
range of approaches, on the basis that valuation is an
art not a science and bearing in mind that not every
The expert evidence obtained on behalf of the
Defendant expressed the view that a reasonably competent assessment would have resulted in a market
value within a +/- 15% range of £4.2million.
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
15
JUNE 2025
