It was house sale completion day, and Chris and Kerry Hart were excited. They were on the road to their £1.2m dream house on the clifftop in Devon, looking out to sea. Keys were ready in hand for their new front door. But their driveway was occupied by a builder’s van; occupied too by their front door! “What, please are you doing?” “Trying to fix the leaking door,” came the reply. Mrs Hart called up the architect at the instruction of the builder. The architect exclaimed loudly down the telephone. That was the start, a bad start. The Harts had known nothing of the leak. Nor other leaks.

They do now. It has taken seven years of litigation. The damages payable come to £750,000; enough to knock the Harts’ house down and start again. The architect has shelled out, so too the conveyancing solicitor and, not to forget, the chartered surveyor who carried out the homebuyer report. It didn’t mention the leaks. Nor was there much in the report to stop the house sale. Nor, for one moment, does the story suggest that the surveyor was anything but a highly experienced, highly respected local man with umpteen years under his belt of doing his stuff. He faces ruin.

Read more …