Professional Negligence FAQs

Yes is the answer. If you engage a professional to carry out work for If the skill is not at the level expected then if you have suffered a loss in most cases you are able to ask the professional to compensate you.

No. No win no fee is available and if you are successful most if not all of your fees will be paid by the insurers of the professional.

Sometimes this is easy. Sometimes not so. The simple way is to look what the position would have been had they done their job properly. Next look where you are now and ask what the costs will be to put you back where you should have been. That is the basic loss. There may be other ancillary losses as well.
We would usually ask another expert in that field to tell us. For instance if a surveyor has been to do a survey and has missed something then we would ask another surveyor if that should have been missed. If he agrees that it should not have been missed then you have the basis of a claim.
No in fact very few do go to court. Nearly always bad cases fall by the way side or good cases settle. Very few times do lawyers want to go to Court because of the expense involved if you lose. Whilst insurers are there to pick up the bill they also want to settle as they don’t want to pay costs either.
No there are sometimes arbitration clauses in agreements and also mediation is a good quick way to settle cases like these. Mediation also is much cheaper for the insurers. At the start of Court cases there are protocol periods where the parties attempt to resolve their differences. These are not as successful as was anticipated when they were first brought in but they do sometimes result in a settlement.
Yes we have been involved in case against surveyors, valuers, accountants, other solicitors, insurance brokers, builders, architects, engineers, hauliers, estate agents, will writers…. the list is endless.

To contact our Professional Negligence team, please call 01744 742360, or click here to email info@sthelenslaw.co.uk >