Surveyor and their insurance

[Stephen H]

To cut a long story short:

we are in dispute with a surveyor. Our solicitor has written several times asking for his personal indemnity insurance details so that we can make a claim against his insurance company for his professional negligence and hence compensation for our losses.

Each time, the surveyor has declined to provide his insurance company details to our solicitor.

Does anyone know of a legal way of finding our who the surveyor is insured with so that we can put our claim in or to force the surveyor into providing his insurance details?

Regards,

S.

[Davey]

Maybe he doesn't have any insurance. That would explain everything. Have you tried the Institute of Chartered Surveyors, to see if he actually is one? If he is, they might help, The Law Society certainly helped me in a dispute with a solicitor, so this might go the same way. If he isn't, you may have problem trying to collect from him personally.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Sue him direct. If he has insurance, he'll soon pass it on to them.

[charles]

You sue the individual, not his insurance company. It's up to him to involve his insurance company.

[Muddymike]

To cut a long story short:

Get a new solicitor. Any decent one should know the way around this!

Mike

[Stephen H]

without going into too much detail basically we had a survey done prior to buying house.

He failed to see the subsidence.

On the strength of his report, we bought said house.

When we moved in we saw cracking. we complained to surveyor. He appointed a 2nd surveyor to review the house.

2nd surveyor upheld our complaint that 1st surveyor should have seen subsidence and should have reported it to us prior to house purchase. 1st surveyor has been asked 4 times for his insurance details by solicitor. each time, he basically passes the buck and prevaricates. 1st time, he blamed the trees. the second time he blamed our solicitor. the 3rd time he blamed the buyer for not taking over the seller's house insurance to insure continuity of cover rather that starting a new policy from scratch prior to exchange of contracts..... the fourth time he blamed the council planning & building regulations department (house was built in 1985.

the 1st surveyor is chartered with RICS.

[Dave Liquorice]

Contact RICS and file a complaint with them. They may have his details etc and will have a "code of conduct". Mean time get your solicitor to start proceedings against the surveor in the civil court (try...(*)) to get back all your losses, don't forget costs and keep a detailed record (date/time) of *all* communications, make notes about phone calls (better still record them), keep copies of all letters sent recieved etc that you or your solicitor make/write.

(*) If he doesn't have insurance then even if the court finds in your favour you'll then have the battle of getting anything out of him.

[Andy Burns]

I'd agree with what others have said, you sue surveyor#1, if you win he claims from his insurer, assuming he has one.

[Robin]

I agree with what Dave Plowman et al have already pointed out (that any claim you make is formally against the surveyor not the insurors.)

I suggest you ask your solicitor *why* he needs the details of the (first) surveyor's PI policy when your claim is against the surveyor (or his firm). There may be pragmatic reasons why the solicitor wants to know but there's little point speculating about them when your solicitor knows; and even a solicitor shouldn't charge you a leg to tell you ;)

In passing, the surveyor does not come across to me as all that "dodgy" given he appointed a 2nd surveyor to review the house, and one who upheld your complaint. It may be no more than that he doesn't want his insurors alerted to a potential claim while he is still hoping to make it go away. So - again, as others have said - you could ask your solicitor why you should not now start a formal claim (eg with a "letter before action") in order to smoke him out.

[tony sayer]

And of course we are urged when in doubt to get professional advice;!..

Professional till anything goes wrong that is, then no different to the worst ebay shysters...;!...

[Chris J Dixon]

My solicitor was suggesting, a very long time ago, that I should have a full survey done for a place I was buying. I responded that the report would be so full of caveats that there would be great difficulty in taking action in the event of trouble, and selecting a surveyor based on the adequacy of their insurance seemed to be rather missing the point. "Not necessarily" he replied "We have a number of such cases on our hands at the moment." At which juncture I felt that he had made my point for me.

Chris

[Stephen H]

I have already made contact with RICS.

basically they don't get involved in two different surveyors opinions of the same "job"

Apparently they can only deal with breaches of their disciplinary code such as criminal convictions, lack of insurance, civil court compensation orders, failure to reply to letters from RICS, failure to file an annual return to RICS, etc etc.

So I would have to go all the way to court to get a judgement against him before RICS will look at the case.

S.

[Adam Aglionby]

Cheapest `survey ` that meets lenders criterion will normally do, its all going to be full of unable to inspect due to floorcoverings and furniture anyway. In the property boom get down to a `second gear survey` the gear the surveyor slects as he drives past the property doing the survey.....

`rougue traders/house of horrors ` episode did surveyors,

Level 3 or wahtever , structural survey on known property, nicely ring bound, glossy covers, company getting questioned on phone:

You mention getting potential rising damp checked by specialists electrics inspected by specialists. plumbing inspected by specialists heating system inspected by specialists. timber issues rot/decay inspected by specialists roofing inspected by specialists potential ground movement inspected by specialists.

Just one question for 800 quid plus VAT what exactly are you a specialist in?

Cheers Adam

[Davey]

At least lack of insurance is in that list. But that sucks, what's the point of having them, then?

[John Rumm]

I would agree with the other responders... you have no contract with his insurers, and so you can't approach them directly. All you can do is start legal proceedings against the surveyor, and its then up to him to involve his insurers (or not) as he so desires.

[Peter Crosland]

Any legal action has to be against him. It is then up to him to involve his insurer if he wishes to. Quite why your solicitor does not understand that is weird.

Peter Crosland

[djc]

Perhaps the OP's choice of solicitor is as good as his choice of surveyor?

[Adam Aglionby]

They are trade club, like any trade club , they exist to serve their members, not the general public....

Cheers Adam

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm fairly certain the surveyor's professional body covers things in this unlikely eventuality.

[Dave Liquorice]

So presumably RICS have a record of this surveyours insurance... They'll probably scream DPA if you as them for that information mind.

Same as most of these organisations support their members.