Expert Witness Journal Issue 63 October 2025 - Flipbook - Page 78
In June 2012 Mr & Mrs Hart asked Richard Large to
inspect the property and the problems that they have
been enduring with water ingress. No admission of
liability is made by Richard Large. Remedial works to
cure the leaks are carried out between 2014 and 2018.
Claims of professional negligence are made by Mrs
& Mrs Hart against the architect, the conveyancing
solicitor and Richard Large sometime in 2019. The
solicitor and architect make out of court settlements
amounting to £376,000 between them. Richard
Large does not make any out of court settlement and
following a court case in February 2020, the judge
makes judgement of professional negligence against
Richard Large. Following expert witness reports by
Quantity surveyors as to the amount of repair work
involved, the cost was judged to be £750,000 for
repair and rebuilding. The judge also awarded Mr
& Mrs Hart £15,000 for inconvenience and distress.
Subtracting the amount already paid by the architect
and solicitor, Richard Large was therefore liable for
£389,000.
made Richard Large very wary about pronouncing
that the building was watertight. He made reference
in his report that although he could no view damp
proof elements to the walls, windows terraces,
he basically assumed that they were intact and
performing adequately.
Details of the court case
This was heavily criticised by the judge and he made
reference to the fact that Richard Large should at
least have said in his report that the damp roo昀椀ng
element (see paragraphs 189-199 in the court
judgement) could not be seen. The judge said
that Richard Large should have referred to these
elements as ‘not inspected’. Furthermore, Richard
Large’s surveying ‘antennae’ should have been
on alert when he found a number of cases of poor
workmanship that put some doubt as to the quality
of the build and this was pointed out to Richard
Large (see paragraph 211 of the judgement) during
questioning between Richard Large and the judge.
The issue of whether the level of survey carried out
by Richard Large was correct was discussed by the
judge and he gave a very interesting argument in
the tautology of Richard Large e昀昀ectively trying to
use the fact that he only carried out a Homebuyer’s
Report and not a Full Building Survey. The
argument by the judge is given at paragraph 136 and
e昀昀ectively says that Richard Large should have been
continually assessing whether the level of survey
was correct for the type and location of building
being inspected. Richard Large could not use the
argument that he was instructed to carry out a
Homebuyer’s report and not a Full Building Survey
and that if he was instructed to do a Full Building
Survey then he would have been able to spot the
defects.
Details of claim made by Mr & Mrs Hart
Mr & Mrs Hart claimed that Richard Large was
negligent by recommending a Homebuyers report
instead of a Full Building Survey, failing to identify
the significant damp problems at the property
and failing to recommend, in his report, that a
Professional Consultant’s Certificate (PCC)
should have been obtained.
Richard Large was not found negligent in advising
and producing a Home Buyers Report, but negligent
in not alerting the Harts to the possibility of damp
penetration and not recommending a PCC. The
judgement was delivered in May 2020 and a link to
the judgement is at the end of this article. I would
urge all building surveyors and lawyers involved in
this work to read it as although it is long at over 100
pages, it is very readable and well subdivided. There
are many judgements that are equally long are have
no sub headings and consequently are very hard to
follow.
There is a link to the podcast at the end of the article
and in this podcast between experienced surveyors
there is agreement that although the actual report
for a Full Building survey is lengthier than that for a
Homebuyer’s Report, many agreed that the level of
inspection for both reports are essentially the same.
I must confess that when I 昀椀rst heard about this case
I felt it vey harsh on Richard Large when I heard
the summaries of the case. As you can see from the
photograph of the ‘after’, the building appears to
be built well and an architect was involved in the
design and supervising the construction. In his
measurements for damp internally, Richard Large
found no signs of damp ingress and therefore
concluded that the building was free of any
possibility of damp ingress. And, essentially, here
starts his 昀椀rst step to negligence.
The last point is whether Richard Large was negligent
for failing, in his report, to state that a Professional
Consultant’s Certi昀椀cate (PCC) must be provided.
The judge held that because of the unusual nature
of the building being newly rebuilt and the inability
of Richard Large to determine conclusively whether
the damp proo昀椀ng elements were present then
Richard Large should have made it very clear that a
PCC should be demanded and basically advising the
Harts not to proceed without one. If Richard Large
had stated that a PCC should be produced then
the sale would not have gone through and Richard
Large would not have been found liable of £389,000!
The architect had realised that they were liable and
I made reference at the beginning to the fact that
this was a very exposed property on a cli昀昀 top
in South Devon and that the building had been
practically rebuilt. These two items should have
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
76
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2025
