Surveyor charged with professional negligence

Published on 16 Jul 2010 under category: legal

A former surveyor who admitted to a false qualification has been charged with professional negligence after overvaluing a property by over £3 million.

Christopher Jarvis from Staffordshire has denied that he was attempting to defraud the bank of money, after the prosecution claimed that separate evaluations from other surveyors found that the house was worth only £1.3 million.

Mr Jarvis had claimed that the property, belonging to the financier Paul Cope, was worth around £4.25 million.

The mortgage, worth £3 million, was granted by Yorkshire Bank following Mr Jarvis's assessment.

Prosecutor Miss Jane Bewsey told the court: "It's the Crown's case that Jarvis agreed with Cope to produce a valuation report giving that massively inflated valuation in order for Cope to secure that £3 million advance."

The survey of the property was so effusive that Mr Jarvis was investigated by the industry body the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

In one paragraph, he described the gardens of Mr Cope's property, as designed "in the style of Inigo Jones", the Jacobean architect.

In his defence, the 66-year-old former surveyor said that he had not previously been accused of professional negligence in his 42-year old career, despite having purchased his doctorate from an American university.

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