COURT OF APPEAL VALUATION OUTCOME - BRATT v JONES

Bratt v Jones considered by the Court of Appeal

This case recently raised the question of the legal and evidential significance of reasonable margins of error within which valuations prepared by competent valuers might reasonably differ.

The High Court decision

The Claimant, Mr Bratt, sought to extend the boundaries of the current law and submitted, in effect, that if the challenged valuation was outside a reasonable margin of error (“the Bracket”), there was no need for a claimant to go on to prove that the valuer had failed to take adequate professional skill, care and diligence in reaching their valuation. It was, instead, for the valuer to prove that they were not negligent.

In the High Court, the Judge found that the valuer had made a mistake in carrying out one aspect of his valuation. The Judge indicated that he would have been inclined to find that this had been negligent and that it caused a loss of £495,000 but determined that the appropriate margin for a non-negligent valuation of the property was “anywhere between 10% and 15%” either side of the “correct” value and since the valuation had been within 14.15% of the value that the judge determined to be the correct value of the property, he dismissed the claim for damages for professional negligence.

The test

The High Court Judge considered the authorities and set out a two part test to decide whether a valuer had been negligent, both limbs of which needed to be satisfied:

• It is a precondition of liability that the valuation falls outside the Bracket. If it fell within the Bracket, the claim would be dismissed.
• If the valuation fell outside the Bracket, a finding of negligence can only be made if the valuer failed the Bolamtest, i.e., to reach the standards of a reasonably competent professional in that field.

The Judge made it clear that, ultimately, the question of negligence could not be decided solely by whether the valuation fell outside a reasonable margin of error but by reference to whether the valuer acted “in accordance with practices which are regarded as acceptable by a respectable body of opinion in his profession.”

The Court of Appeal decision

The Claimant appealed the decision to the Court of Appeal on four points, two of which were points of law. The Court of Appeal handed down it’s judgment on 2 May 2025 dismissing all four points of appeal and reaffirming the High Court’s Judgment as the correct test to apply, emphasising that the burden remains with the claimant to prove both limbs of the test.

Conclusion

This is a welcome decision which clarifies the position and emphasises the need for a claimant to plead and prove the specific points of failure in respect of which it is alleged that no reasonably competent valuer could have done. It also reaffirms that a claimant’s evidence must address the reasonable margin for error which exists in respect of the valuation, as the margin of error is a question of fact in each case.