Residential Law Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Residential Law - Case Study Example The Council had instructed its employee, Sam, to carry out this work. (Although not specifically mentioned in the judgment, it was assumed that Hazel Khan was expected to pay for this report in the charges made to him by the Southwark Council.) The report to be prepared by Sam should diligently disclose the presence of any settlement cracks between the flat and later extension, which might reduce the value of the flat. Any devaluation in price of flat can be claimed by Hazel Khan. Sam has to declare the current solvability status of the Southwark Council. The Council's professional indemnity insurance has to be valid at all times for any future insurance claim. The Mortgage report to be supplied to Hazel Khan must be in a form which should include all references to Southwalk Council, although Hazel knew that the report had been prepared by a hired and independent valuer. Hazel Khan has the option to rely on this report or may arrange for another independent survey of the property if he chooses to do so. Hazel Khan has the right to criticize any breached a duty of care which the Council owed him in his personal capacity. Sam should accept that Hazel would place reliance upon his report. In order to hold Hazel personally liable in anyway, Hazel had to show that he had assumed responsibility towards the report in his personal capacity. Sam has to bear allegiance that his duty was not to Hazel, but to the Council which employed him and it was on the Council alone that Hazel had relied. It was the Council that had assumed responsibility to Hazel, not he. The report should be cited similar with the case of Yianni v. Edwin Evans & Sons [1982] QB 438, where a firm of valuers and surveyors, engaged by a building society to value a property for mortgage purposes, had been held liable to the purchasers in negligence, despite the purchasers ignoring a recommendation in the mortgage application form that they arrange an independent survey. Another case to cite is in the combined cases of Smith v. Bush and Harris v. Wyre Forest District Council [1990] 1 AC 831. The only real distinction between the present case [Harris] and the case of Yianni is that the valuation was carried out by an in-house valuer. This valuer is discharging the duties of a professional man whether he is employed by the mortgagee or acting on his own account or is employed by a firm of independent surveyors. The essence of the case against him is that he as a professional man realised that the purchaser was relying on him to exercise proper skill and judgment in his profe ssion and that it was reasonable and fair that the purchaser should do so. Sam has to owe a consistent duty of care and Hazel to rely on professional valuer just as in Yianni and Harris where the plaintiffs never even saw the valuation report. But they are to be taken to have relied on the professional skill and care of the individual person who carried it out. It is made clear that a professionally qualified person giving advice may owe a duty of care to an effective recipient of that advice in addition to the duty owed to their employers. This has to be confined strictly to those who may be termed professionally qualified people as in the case of Sam and Hazel, because it would depend on the full circumstances in which advice was given, rather than to any label appropriate to the adviser. In any