Rowland Phillip Bratt v Nigel Lawson Jones

In a professional-negligence claim against a valuer, showing that a valuation falls outside the acceptable bracket is necessary but not sufficient for liability. The claimant must also prove that the valuer breached the Bolam standard by failing to exercise appropriate professional skill, care and diligence. The legal burden remains on the claimant throughout; an evidential inference arising from an outside-bracket valuation does not reverse it.

The bracket is a fact-sensitive assessment for the court, based on the evidence, including expert evidence. It is not a fixed question of law or a mechanistic percentage exercise. The court may assess a wider margin where the valuation involves competing judgments, unusual features or uncertainty, even if the case is not formally exceptional.

Mr Bratt claimed damages from Mr Jones, an independent expert valuer appointed under an option agreement concerning development land. Mr Jones valued the site at £4,075,000. The High Court found the correct value to be £4,746,860 and considered that Mr Jones had made an error concerning enhancements, but held that the valuation remained within a permissible margin of 10% to 15%. The claim was dismissed.

On appeal, Mr Bratt challenged the legal test, the width and evidential basis of the bracket, the treatment of enhancements and abnormal costs, and the exclusion of two further comparables. The central questions were whether an outside-bracket valuation shifted the burden of proof and whether the bracket was a question of law or fact.

1. Appeal dismissed. A claimant alleging negligence by a valuer must establish both that the valuation fell outside the acceptable bracket and that the valuer breached the professional standard required by the Bolam principles. The bracket is therefore a necessary but not sufficient condition of liability.
2. The legal burden of proving negligence remains on the claimant throughout. An outside-bracket valuation may indicate that negligence occurred, but it does not shift to the valuer the burden of proving due skill and care. The reference in Merivale Moore plc v Strutt & Parker to an evidential burden was not a reversal of the legal burden.
3. The bracket is a question of fact, to be determined by the court on the evidence and the particular valuation exercise. It is not a fixed legal rule. The court should avoid a mechanistic approach and may consider expert evidence about the valuation’s difficulty and the range within which competent valuers might reasonably differ.
4. The judge was entitled to adopt a margin of 10% to 15%. The evidence supported a margin above the usual norm because of the range of expert views, the several valuation judgments required and the treatment of abnormal costs. The judge’s assessment placed the challenged valuation within the bracket.
5. The judge was also entitled to adjust the comparable valuation by about 50% of the enhancement costs, on the evidential basis available. There was no sufficient evidence or pleaded case requiring a different treatment of abnormal costs. Nor was the judge required to conduct an independent, expert-evidence-free comparison exercise using the Aynho Road and Milton Road transactions.
6. The court declined to resolve arguments questioning the broader logic of treating an outside-bracket valuation as a precondition to liability. That issue could only be reconsidered by the Supreme Court in a case where it directly arose. The appeal was dismissed on all four grounds.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — [2025] EWCA Civ 562 : appeal dismissed on all four grounds.
• High Court of Justice, Business and Property Courts in Manchester — HHJ Mark Cawson KC, sitting as a Judge of the High Court, [2024] EWHC 631 (Ch) : claim dismissed after finding the challenged valuation within a permissible margin of 10% to 15%.