Do you have a professional negligence claim?
You may have a professional negligence claim if an adviser you relied on — a solicitor, surveyor, accountant or similar — fell below the standard reasonably expected of them, and that failure caused you a financial loss. This checker walks through the four things such a claim needs: a duty of care, a breach of it, a loss caused by that breach, and a claim brought in time.
How it works
Tell the checker who the adviser was, what went wrong, and roughly when you found out. It points to whether the building blocks of a claim look present, and to how close you may be to a deadline.
A professional negligence claim has to clear four hurdles. The adviser owed you a duty of care. They breached it by doing something a reasonably competent professional in their field would not have done — getting it wrong is not always negligence. That breach has to have caused your loss, rather than something else being the real cause. And the loss has to be one the law will compensate.
Timing is often the trap. The usual limit is six years from the negligent act, but where the damage was not obvious at the time you may have three years from when you first knew enough to investigate — subject to a long-stop of fifteen years. Because these rules are technical and easy to miss, anything near a deadline needs prompt advice.
Treat the result as a prompt, not an opinion on the merits. Professional negligence claims are evidence-heavy and the adviser’s file is usually central, so it is worth taking advice — and asking for that file — sooner rather than later.
Questions about Do you have a professional negligence claim?
You are generally entitled to your own file, and it often shows what was advised, done and recorded at the time, so obtaining it early is usually worthwhile.
The three-year 'date of knowledge' extension exists precisely because some professional mistakes only surface years later, but the fifteen-year long-stop is a hard outer limit, so check anything that may be close.
Many claims fail, investments fall and outcomes disappoint without anyone being negligent. The question is always whether the professional fell below the standard reasonably expected, not whether things went well.
Damages aim to put you, so far as money can, in the position you would have been in had the negligence not happened — which is not the same as the cost of the work or the fees you paid.
These are usually summarised as duty, breach, causation and loss, with limitation as a fifth, practical hurdle. A claim that is missing one of them will struggle.
We can review what happened, tell you honestly whether there is a realistic claim, and explain how it might be funded. We charge by the hour with a written estimate at the outset, and the first conversation is free.
The standard is that of a reasonably competent member of the relevant profession. An honest mistake, a difference of professional opinion, or simply a disappointing outcome is not automatically negligence.
In short, the professionals whose advice or work you relied on and paid for, where their failure has cost you money.
Have a question that isn't covered here? Speak to one of our specialists directly.
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