Can I get Compensation? – Conveyancing Negligence

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Can I claim compensation against my conveyancing solicitors?

These days people are well aware of their legal rights and it’s becoming increasingly common for conveyancers and property solicitors to be sued for professional negligence.

Conveyancers and Solicitors handle thousands of property transactions each year, so it’s no surprise that mistakes happen. Errors made by conveyancers can cause a lot of stress for Clients, some errors can even cause clients to sustain some kind of loss.

There are many different ways negligent conveyancing can cause a loss, sometimes negligence can have severe financial and emotional consequences. But it is possible to recover losses by claiming for professional negligence.

Put simply: Professional Negligence is when a professional fails to perform their responsibilities to the required standard.

Examples of Negligent Conveyancing

Examples of Conveyancing/Property Solicitors Negligence include:

  • Failure in the Investigation of a Title e.g. Failure to advise that part of a property is not within the Seller’s title
  • Bad advice about matters affecting the property that caused a loss
  • Failure to advise on Adverse or Missing items e.g. Planning Permission, Rights of Way, Building Regulations, NHBC Guarantee
  • Failing to carry out property searches and enquiries
  • Failure to advise on information given by Sellers or Property Searches e.g. provisions for maintenance of roads and sewers, proximity of a Coal mine or other Environmental issues
  • Failure to make further enquiries after Seller’s Replies or Property Search results suggest further enquiries should be made
  • Failure in a Leasehold purchase e.g. didn’t establish that the terms of the lease are satisfactory
  • No obligation/security to build on the sale of bought land or Building contract
  • Failure to advise on a Listed Building e.g. missing Consent documents
  • Missing out important provisions from the Contract or Deed
  • Failing to register your purchase or lease at the Land Registry
  • Missing Consents for Change of Use
  • Failure to define property boundaries correctly
  • Including the wrong provisions or words in the Contract or Deed
  • Mistaken sale of all or part of your land
  • Acting without authority
  • Conflicts of Interest
  • Failing to raise Requisitions on Title
  • Failing to ensure removal of a Registered Charge or Mortgage
  • Failing to register a Mortgage or Charge at Companies House on time
  • Failing to register a Mortgage or Charge at the Land Registry on time or at all
  • Failing to follow the Mortgagees instructions
  • Failures on Equity Release or Lease/Tenancy back cases
  • Failures in Contract Races
  • Failure to protect vulnerable Clients
  • Failing to advise on a Survey Report (Surveyor Negligence)

Need Help?

If you think you might have a claim, even if it’s a minor dispute, contact OUR RECOMMENDED Conveyancing Neglegence solicitor Slater and Gordon. They have helped resolve the negligence disputes and will give you FREE and impartial advice:




Do I have a claim?

To successfully claim professional negligence, you’ll need to prove that the Conveyancer/Solicitor has breached the duty of care, and prove that the breach has caused a loss to you, the claimant.

You want to know for sure, you’ll have to seek the advice of a professional negligence lawyer. A ‘no win no fee’ solicitor will take on the case if they think you have a claim.

Also, in less serious circumstances you can seek FREE advice from the Legal Ombudsman. They help resolve service complaints by agreement rather than a quasi-judicial. If agreed resolution is not possible, one of the team of ombudsmen will make a decision. If you accept their decisions, you cannot take the conveyancer to court for the same set of circumstances, the case is settled.

How much can I claim?

How much can you claim? Well how long is a piece of string? …it all depends on the circumstances.

If it can be proven that a negligent conveyancer was responsible for the loss of £200,000 on a property sale/purchase, then the claimant should be entitled to claim £200,000 + extra compensation for personal stress caused.

Please note: If your claim is worth less than £10,000 it is considered a Small Claims procedure. A Small Claims procedure is different and Solicitors usually won’t get involved in these cases as you are unable to recover solicitors’ costs from the negligent conveyancers. You can still recover costs, and your claim could be worth more than you think. If you’re not sure, contact us! We can help estimate your loss!

How long do I have to make a Negligence claim?

The limitation period in most professional negligence cases is 6 years from the date of the negligence.

The 6 years can be extended if the negligence has only become apparent at a later stage. So if you discovered negligent conveyancing after 6 years, you’d have 3 years from that date to make a claim (limited to 15 years from the date of the negligence). Proving negligence becomes harder as Conveyancers will usually only keep case files for a minimum of 6 years from the date that the transaction was completed.

So if you are considering bringing a negligence claim against a conveyancing solicitor, you should act quickly!

Bad Service Is Not Negligence

If your conveyancer was slow, bad at communicating and offered a poor level of service for the money you paid, then we recommend you complain. But this does not necessarily mean that you have a case for negligence. Use the conveyancing negligence examples above to get a better idea of what is and isn’t a good case for professional negligence.

If you think you’ve received a really poor level of service, the Legal Ombudsman could help you get back the money you paid for your conveyancing services.

Remember, this article contains general guidance, it’s just advice and should not be relied on in place of specific legal advice. If you think you have a genuine case against a negligent conveyancer, seek legal advice.


When contacting us: If your situation is severe and we believe you have a genuine claim, we may send your details on to our highly recommended professional negligence solicitors. They will offer you professional advice and can help you recover any loss. Also, by contacting us you agree to our terms and conditions.

50 Responses

  1. L says:

    Hi,

    After recently moving to our new house a few months ago we have found out unofficially that the next two houses joining ours are being converted into apartments. We and the neighbours have not been made aware of this at all. Not only that but our house was actually owned by the Director of the estate agents who sold our house and the next two houses, I find it unusual that they would not have known this was taking place. What I need to know is can I sue as I would not have bought the house had I been made aware of this beforehand, and if so who do I sue the vendor or the solicitors who carried out the conveyancing?

    Many thanks

    • admin says:

      Hey, sounds dodgy to me… but i think this will all depend on wether or not you had a Planning Search taken on the property. A planning report provides detailed planning application information within the vicinity of the property, dating back ten years. You can choose not to have one. If you chose not to have one, then the conveyancer would not be liable because this information was not available to them. BUT they SHOULD have advised you to get a planning report.

      As for the Director of the estate agents actually selling the property… well that complicates thing further, especially if they recommended you use their ‘trusted’ solicitor (could be a conflict of interest).

      You need to have the matter reviewed properly, I’ve sent over an email with more details.

  2. LaiHa says:

    Hi, we bought our flat coming up to 2 years and recently we found out our solicitor failed to tell us who we should pay our rentcharges to. This was a buy to let flat and the solicitor failed to include our correspondence address on the register of title also. 10 months ago the company who collect the rentcharges sent us letters to our rented property but tenants claim they didn’t receive these. Outstanding charges were passed onto PDC and they took us to court without our knowledge. CCJ letter was then sent to our lender.
    Due to solicitor negligence we now have CCJ’S against us, pay court fees of £2.5k. How much can we claim back due to this negligence? Your advice is greatly appreciated.

  3. Ashley says:

    I brought a Coach House back in 2012 (New Build). Its has only now come up that we do not have any access to the back of our house as we were always told we did not have a garden. The deeds do show a red outline of land which is ours but obviously being told our house did not come with a garden and not being able to see any land with the house we did not even think about querying it. We are basically unable to access the back of our house, there is a house a wall to the left and then a car park for two cars and a large fence to the right its over 6 foot tall. I have been sent a plan by the original developers which shows a pathway and gate going around the outside of the house, which was not undertaken. The developers have agreed to undertake the work and put it back but have access through our garage, which is not to the plans that they shown. I am wondering how this all got missed? Should this have been shown in the conveyance report that there was no access to the back of the property? Or are we the ones that are in the wrong for not picking this up with the solicitor? With a new build we just assumed everything was correct and never had no reason to doubt it. If your told you don’t have a garden you don’t go looking for one.

    I am trying to get a copy of the report.

  4. Rob says:

    Hi Bought a house in May 2017, it had a loft conversion and this was marketed as the 5th bedroom. The only information our solicitor at the time gave to us was: ‘The search has revealed building regulation for a loft conversion. Due to the age of the same the sellers solicitor has not provided a copy of the document’. The other day we contacted the council to obtain copies of all our house certificates for ourselves, and they said they didn’t know we had a loft conversion! They said planning permission was granted in Dec 2004 but they weren’t aware it went ahead. We now how a surveyor coming round to estimate how much it will cost to get everything to 2017 standards, this could cost £1000’s. In my view our solicitor made it sound like there was a certificate but they didn’t need to see it as they knew it was over a certain amount years old. Now we know it was never signed off, how can the solicitor have said they didn’t need to provide it due to the age of the work?

    • admin says:

      Did you have an indemnity insurance policy in place?

      The council can issue an enforcement notice only within four years of the date unproved building work took place. In your case, four years have passed, so there shouldn’t be any risk of enforcement action as far as planning permission goes.

      If building work contravenes the Building Regulations, the local authority may serve an enforcement notice on the building owner requiring alteration or removal of work which contravenes the regulations (section 36 of the 1984 Act). BUT a section 36 enforcement notice cannot be served after the expiration of 12 months from the date of completion of the building work. A local authority also cannot take enforcement action under section 36 if the work which you have carried out is in accordance with your full plans application which the authority approved or failed to reject.

      Has the council sent this surveyor?

  5. Tilly says:

    I purchased my house nearly 2 years ago from someone who used a false identity in the sale, and who now lives with his partner next door to me! Under his real identity I relied on written declarations and information from him, his partner (as they were both involved in the sale of the house), as well as delarations from the non-existent seller – declarations concerning previous works done to the house and issues regarding the land, which I now know to all be false, or which were never disclosed during conveyancing. Am I able to sue the conveyancers involved at the time of sale/purchase, in order to rescind the contract, and am I able to sue for damages (I have spent a lot of money so far on the house)?

  6. Nick Culey says:

    We have just bought a new build property in July for about £360,000 and just received copies of the title. This had accompanying letters from the land registry stating the land outside of the red border is excluded from our title. This land is about a quarter of are property and even part of our house is built on it. In with the documents their is a defective title policy insurance from Zurich which the developers have taken out. And a stopping up of highways document which relates to the land not included in the title. On purchasing this property we had not been made aware of this. we would not of purchased the property if we new it did not have full title over all the land. Do we have grounds against the solicitors.

  7. Tony says:

    Good evening

    We purchased a property and 17 acres in July, with a view to opening a certificated campsite. The exempted camping organisation we chose agreed to the certification and consulted with the LA. However, yesterday we were informed by the LA that there is an Article 4 Directive over all our land, negating any permitted development under the 1963 GPDO Article 3 to use the land for any recreational & temporary purposes (including the usual 28 day rule).

    We would not have purchased the property had we known there was an Article 4 Directive. Effectively, this disallows any normally permitted diversification of the land.

    Having re-read the Local Authority Search, the Directive is slipped in between two planning permissions with no line spacing and is reasonably difficult for the layman to spot – but it is certainly included.

    Was our solicitor negligent not to advise us of the Article 4 Directive and it’s implications?

    Your advice is much appreciated.
    TP

  8. Karen Ritchie says:

    I own an upstairs flat which is a tyneside flat style lease. The downstairs owner sold back in 2013 however it has come to light recently that they failed to transfer the lease between the downstairs and upstairs flat.

    I want to sell my flat however I need to obtain a lease extension and can not do this until the lease deeds are transferred. My tenant is due to move out in at the end of this year and I can’t re-mortgage or sell until this is dealt with.

    What would you suggest in terms of dealing with this matter? The downstairs owner is chasing up hid solicitor each week but the solicitor is blaming the sellers solicitor.

    It’s all s bit of a mess at the moment which can’t be resolved until they chase up the previous owner to sign the title over.

  9. Lisa says:

    We bought some land 2 years ago. It was a straight forward sale (or so we thought). The acting Solicitors made a mistake on the Land Registry regarding the boundary line, This was not picked-up by our Solicitor or ourselves.

    One year later when the vendor went to sell the piece of land next to us there was a question over acreage by the potential buyer. Unwittingly we’d acquired an extra 0.7 acres, we had bought the land on it’s visual appearance not measured it.

    It came to light this 0.7 acres had been incorporated with conveyancing and the boundary line at Land Registry was in the wrong place. There is a 6ft continuations hedge that surrounds his retained land, heavily referred to in our Deeds as the physical boundary and which we must maintain.

    Being the honest people we are we offered £6k as a Good Will Gesture in order for the boundary line to be corrected at Land Registry. First it was accepted and contracts drawn up but the vendor has since sold the land, declined our offer and registered the small parcel of land at Land Registry in his name (there’s no access) .

    He knows we have put a planning application in to expand our business. He now wants to see the outcome of our planning application! Sadly the planning applied for is on that very piece of land!

  10. Michael says:

    Hi,

    I’m in a similar position and after a bit of advice. I purchased a leasehold property in May 2016. First, my solicitors didn’t advise the company who owns the lease we’d took control so I was hit with a demand for a very large sum of money to move the names over. Obviously this caused a lot of undue stress but I’ve already cleared that with the solicitors. They paid the late fees applied but I was left paying the ground rent and cost of the name change. However, I’ve received notification that my ground rent would double commencing Jan 2018. In my paper work from the solicitors the review date would be 2021. I’ve obviously set the original amount aside and will now struggle to cover the full amount so close to Christmas. If I knew the amount would double so soon after buying I don’t think I’d have bought the property so now I’m at a loss at what to do. Two mistakes and I’m left with a large bill, more stress over Christmas and potentially an un-sellable house.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks
    Mike

    • Dan says:

      Hi I have just purchased a flat and was advised that the service charge was £1000 paid half yearly and that there would not be an increase to this of more then 10% or £100. I haven’t even been moved in a month and have had the bill for the first part of the years payment and it shows that the charge has increased by £217 a year. I was wondering if I have a reason to complain and who the complaint would be with, my solicitors or the managing company that I pay the service charge too? As I had budgeted for the £1000 cost not £1217 this has left me struggling for money right before Christmas. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

  11. TJP says:

    My sellers solicitors failed to enter planning permission to convert the status of the property I am purchasing until 3 months after they were instructed initially- this has led to my family and I being homeless ( 3 children and a disabled partner) for that time (about 3 months now) because we had to add an additional 8 weeks for the planning consents to be completed. This has incurred considerable storage costs, meant that we had to renew the mortgage offer and pay for a second valuation and pay rent in all the places we have been staying in. We have now exchanged after what has been a very, very stressful and expensive time – is it negligent of the vendors solicitors to have not acted on a basic aspect of my purchase? Would really appreciate thoughts on this – thank you

  12. jenny lee says:

    i bought some land and had searches done, i stipulated that i wanted to know of any rights of way before i bought, my solicitor said no there are none, yes you guessed it now after purchase a neighbour is driving right across my land and a solicitor from the company now says he thinks the neighbour has legal right and it was missed can i claim compensation and would it be worth it

  13. Ankur says:

    I bought my leasehold flat two years back and now in the process of remortgage. At the time of buying the vendor told us that the freeholder of the property is not very co-operative and this delayed the LPE1 enquiry form. Moreover the landlord was asked to provide the buildings insurance which they never came back with and hence there was a delay anticipated to the sale. Our solicitor advised us that as there is no ground rent/service charge as per the lease, the vendor(leaseholder) is ok to fill the LPE1 form. Moreover they suggested to have individual insurance for both the flats in order to progress the sale and we bought the flat based on their advice. Now at the time of remortgage our solicitor is saying that this is not correct and they will have to obtain indemnity insurance and ask the new lender if they will accept this property. Are we at fault here or has our solicitor failed to give us correct advice

  14. Mimi2175 says:

    I bought my property with 74 years remaining in 2002. I was about to remortgage for the 3rd time until the new mortgage provider revoked their offer on the basis that my lease was now at 59 years.
    Since my first mortgage in 2002 on my property, remortgaged once thereafter and both times, I was not warned of the implications of letting the lease fall too low (or even that I should extend the lease as soon as possible). It had already past the 80 years when I had bought the property and I have a letter from my then solicitor which states “You will note that the lease is quite short, I trust that the Bank knows about this”…
    That was the only question raised by my Solicitor at the time in 2002 and no further advice given or even a plea bargain to reduce the price of the selling price on this basis. Later in 2004, when I remortgaged, nothing was said about the remaining 72 years left on lease, whatsoever, by the solicitors (not the same as the first).
    I know find myself having to pay in excess of £38,000 to extend my lease.

    • admin says:

      This is becoming ever more common, I hear of so many horror stories like this. Proving professional negligence has taken place is very difficult in circumstances like this one. The conveyancer can say that they made you aware the lease was short, but it doesn’t sound like they informed you of the risks involved… I’ll email you directly to see if I can help you further.

  15. Jane says:

    I bought my house 4 years ago on the understanding, from my conveyancing solicitor, the there was a small area beyond my rear wall that was “included in the Title.” This has turned out to be inaccurate which is significant because this small area is the only buffer I have to stop people parking across my rear access and blocking me in. The legal practice which employed the conveyancer say that she was ‘probably relying on information from the seller’. Do you think I have a case against them for negligence? She is no longer employed by them.

    • admin says:

      It doesn’t matter that she is no longer an employee, it sounds like you could have a case for Professional Negligence.

  16. cas says:

    We are in the process of buying a house and they keep telling us about something on a search, but it is the wrong house! Two people have written to us informing of some problem with water and have not replied to emails nor are they responding to calls. Can we get out of this deal and have money we’ve paid returned to us? They are incompetent!!!

    • admin says:

      Sounds very incompetent, you can pull out at anytime (as long as you haven’t exchanged contracts).

      They’ll be reluctant to give you your money back, but you should fight it!

      • cas says:

        We are not even close to signing contracts!! We should have been as there is no chain either side.They’ve done two searches, both on the wrong ;property. We did pay for a survey which we would have to have done with another company if we pulled out and probably other work that they would charge for. Do you think we would have a case for being refunded?

  17. Stephanie says:

    We agreed to sell our home to someone who promised to complete by April/may. He has 2 solicitors 1 for the purchase and the other for the mortgage lender. We have changed the date of completion twice and every time my solicitors call the buyer solicitors they have gone home or are ill and no one else can deal with the case. I accepted the offer in Feb it is now July. What can l do?

  18. L j c says:

    Our solicitor failed to tell us most of our garden falls within the green belt. We would not have purchased if we had been made aware. How can we evaluate such a loss? We believe we cannot use the garden as we intended.

  19. Rachael says:

    our searches and sellers failed to tell us about a housing development of 1600 homes being done on fields behind our house. Neighbors have since told us they were all aware but it wasn’t disclosed in the property information form and the solicitors searches show other planning applications nearby but not this on this site. The purchase was August 2016. Would we be entitled to claim anything?

  20. M T says:

    I have a similar issue, but with shared ownership – I bought 60% of the share and I have 83 years left on the lease. If it drops under 80 years, it will be more expensive to extend it (not that it isn’t already). The law states that you have to own 100% of the property to extend the lease – so I’m in a situation where I can’t extend and if I don’t the value will drop + it will be more expensive in the future. Is that something the housing association should’ve warned me about before the purchase or is it my fault for not knowing the law?

    • admin says:

      This is why I believe there are some major flaws in the leasehold system, it can cost tens of thousands to extend a lease. Your conveyancer has a duty of care and I think they should’ve made you aware that 1. your lease is short and value will fall 2. you’re unable to extend the lease without 100% ownership. I recommend that you seek some legal advice.

  21. samir patel says:

    i have bought the lease hold flat with 67 years lease remains in 2007. recently I came to know that I have now less than 60 years of lease term remains so possible cost to extend the lease would be 20k plus. I was not aware about the law that it will be expensive to renew lease if is less than 80 years. can you please advise me what kind document solicitor has to provide me explaining the risk of buying lease hold flat with less than 80 years. I have checked all the document provided by solicitors but could not find any explaining the effects in future. can you please help me to go to right direction.

    • admin says:

      Unfortunately, your solicitor does not have to provide you with documents explaining the risk of buying a short lease property. But your conveyancer has a duty of care and should have made you aware that the lease was short, I recommend seeking legal advice.

  22. Sharon says:

    Secured loan charge was never removed from my property nearly 10 year’s on

  23. Mr Glyn Jenkins says:

    I purchased a leasehold flat with a 74 year lease,I now find to extend will cost me 20k! I wasn’t made aware of this whentry getting the conveyancing done.

    • admin says:

      Your conveyancer has a duty of care and should have made you aware of how long you had left on your lease. I recommend seeking professional legal advice.

      • Ffion Trevor says:

        Hello,

        I am in a similar issue where I bought a new build property back in 2015 and when the new buyer went to sign contract yesterday, there is no completion certificate from the builder. This has delayed the sale and buyer is threatning to pull out. Who can I seek advice from about this?

  24. denise farrington says:

    Hya after being in my house for 15yrs, we came to sell it, finding out that it was never registered when bought, we had 2 other remortgages in the space of 2004 to 2010 and it was the 2nd remortgage that picked the fault up.

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