Description
A mortgage lender who advanced loans for the purchase of a property where the purchaser later transpired to be a director and shareholder of the vendor brought proceedings against the solicitors engaged in the transaction based on claims in contract and negligence. Permission to amend the pleadings to allege breach of fiduciary duty was permitted after the limitation period had expired. For the purposes of breach of fiduciary duty it was not necessary to establish the required element for breach of the actual conflict rule, but only to acknowledge that it was arguable that there was a difference between that and the mental element required for breach of the duty of good faith, and that the difference was sufficient that a breach of duty might be established which was not a 'deliberate' breach of duty for the purposes of s.32(2) of the Limitation Act 1980. Accordingly the master had been wrong to hold that there were no circumstances in which the amendment did not deprive the solicitors of an arguable limitation defence.
