How Structural Reports Are Changing Professional Negligence Defences in Conveyancing

Negligence claims against conveyancers continue to rise, and the file the firm hands to its insurers is what tends to decide the outcome.

When a buyer brings a claim months or years after completion, the question rarely turns on what was said in a phone call. It turns on what was written down, what was recommended, and what evidence existed at the time. The growth of the Building Safety Act regime, evolving Part L energy efficiency requirements, and a wider regulatory load on residential transactions have all sharpened the standard against which conveyancing files are now judged.

Inside Conveyancing has previously covered the compliance pressure the Building Safety Act has placed on conveyancing firms, and the structural condition of older or altered properties is now an extension of that same picture. What a surveyor identified, recommended or qualified at the time of inspection now sits as a working part of the conveyancer’s evidential record, and the RICS Level 3 building survey is the most comprehensive single inspection that can sit on the file.

What a Level 3 survey puts on the file

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors sets out the scope of inspection for its Level 3 service. The report it produces differs sharply from a mortgage valuation or a Level 2 inspection. It identifies defects requiring urgent attention. It sets out repair options and the consequences of inaction. It flags hazardous conditions, includes condition ratings against each element of the property, and contains advice directed at the buyer’s legal adviser. Photographs and a written record of the property at the date of inspection are part of the deliverable. That combination is what gives the document its evidential weight.

The properties that most often surface in negligence files share a profile. They tend to be Victorian or Edwardian terraces, period properties with prior alterations, homes built using in-situ concrete (or other non-traditional methods), or buildings with a history of subsidence. These are exactly the cases where a Level 2 report will run into the limits of its scope. They are also the properties on which RICS-accredited firms such as CWH Surveyors recommend carrying out a Level 3 building survey, which include within the service, reports written specifically to advise the buyer’s legal team. A dated record of what the property was, and what the surveyor saw, sits on the file from that point forward.

The compliance picture in 2026

The SRA Code of Conduct requires solicitors to provide a competent service and to keep clients properly informed. In a property transaction, that increasingly means recognising when standard searches and a basic valuation are not enough.

A lender’s valuation tells the conveyancer what the property is worth for mortgage purposes. It does not tell them whether the rear extension has building regulations sign-off, or whether the cracks in the bay window are cosmetic or structural. For the property types listed above, those are the questions a Level 2 report will not always answer.

Recommending a Level 3 inspection in the right cases protects both the client and the firm. If the buyer proceeds against advice, or declines to instruct a survey at all, the recommendation itself becomes part of the firm’s defence. Professional indemnity insurers increasingly look for that thread of recorded advice when they review claims, and its absence is something they note.

When the evidence is missing

The difficulty for a defending firm is that the absence of a survey leaves nothing on the file to rebut the claim.

If the buyer’s expert later produces a report identifying a defect that should have been picked up at the time of purchase, the conveyancer has no equivalent evidence from that date to put forward. A claimant’s surveyor can demonstrate what a competent inspection would have revealed. The defending firm is left arguing the point in the abstract.

This is where insurers tend to focus. Indemnity providers reviewing a claim will look first at what was on the file: the searches obtained, the enquiries raised, the surveys recommended, and any written record of the client’s response. A file that shows the firm raised the relevant questions, even where the client chose not to act on the advice, sits in a far stronger position than one that did not.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and the courts have indicated repeatedly that file management and proper advice are central to professional conduct. An evidential gap is hard to close after the fact.

Practical steps for firms

Where a property falls into the categories that warrant a Level 3 inspection, the recommendation should be made in writing and the client’s response recorded. A surveyor who remains available for guidance through to exchange of contracts adds a further line of evidence to the file.

For firms regularly handling older or altered stock, an established referral relationship with a RICS-qualified surveying practice is a straightforward piece of risk management. It puts the right inspection on the right transaction, and the right paper on the file.

Kindly written by Annie ButtonImage courtesy of Adobe