Seller's Duties

I must take issue with Brian Marson's letter which goes way beyond arguments about seller's packs and seeks completely to overturn the very basis of the obligations and liabilities of the parties to a property transaction (see [2000] Gazette, 7 September, 18).

A solicitor's duty is to his client and not to any third party.

It is undoubtedly part of the seller's solicitor's duty to discuss with his client the prudence of correcting obvious defects in the title to the property, and this applies whether or not a 'seller's pack' is a good idea.

However, if the seller wants to proceed regardless, why shouldn't he ? Even a defective property is saleable.

It is merely a matter of agreeing terms acceptable to the parties.

Is the seller's solicitor to act as a policeman in such matters and prevent his client from proceeding or decide the terms on which his client's property is sold?

It is for the purchaser's solicitor to protect his purchaser client and I find it an extraordinary notion that the seller's solicitor should point out to the purchaser the weaknesses and deficiencies in his own client's position - indeed, to do so would surely be a fundamental breach of his duty to his own client.

I fully support the idea of a 'seller's pack' which provides a comprehensive set of title and property information documents, but I vehemently oppose the extension of a seller's duty to providing a surveyor's report or undertaking any obligation which changes the caveat emptor basis of property sales.

You cannot treat the sale of a property in the same way as the sale of a food processor and to suggest that 'today's consumer society' should do so is quaintly naive.

Chris Miles, JCO Miles, London