Niprose Investments Limited & Ors v Vincents Solicitors Limited
| Court | Chancery Division |
| Judge | His Honour Judge Hodge Kc |
| Judgment Date | 17 January 2025 |
| Neutral Citation | [2025] EWHC 14 (Ch) |
| Date | 17 January 2025 |
| Year | 2025 |
| Counsel | Mr Simon Wilton Kc,Mr Laurie Scher |
Neutral Citation Number: [2025] EWHC 14 (Ch)
Case No: BL-2022-MAN-000036
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS
IN MANCHESTER
BUSINESS LIST (ChD)
Manchester Civil Justice Centre
1 Bridge Street West
Manchester M60 9DJ
Date: Friday, 17 January 2025
Before :
HIS HONOUR JUDGE HODGE KC
Sitting as a Judge of the High Court
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Between :
NIPROSE INVESTMENTS LIMITED
AND 34 OTHER CLAIMANTS
60 th
to 94 th
Claimants
- and -
VINCENTS SOLICITORS LIMITED 10 th
Defendant
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Mr Simon Wilton KC (instructed by RPC, London) for the 10th Defendant/Applicant
Mr Laurie Scher (instructed by Walker Morris LLP, Leeds) for the 60th to 94th
Claimants/Respondents
Hearing date: Thursday, 5 December 2024
Date judgment circulated: Tuesday, 7 January 2025
Hand down date: Friday, 17 January 2025
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Approved Judgment
This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.00am on Friday 17 January 2025 by
circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail, by uploading it to CE-File, and by
release to the National Archives.
.............................
HIS HONOUR JUDGE HODGE KC
Professional negligence – Solicitors – Defendant’s application for strike out or summary
judgment – Defendant acted for purchasers of some 50 residential units in a buyer-funded,
off-plan development scheme – Purchasers losing their substantial up-front payments on
failure of development – Purchasers suing their conveyancing solicitors for breach of duty –
Extent of duty on purchasers’ solicitors – Whether duty to advise that deposit-holding
machinery offered no meaningful protection – Whether duty to advise purchasers against
risks of investing in development – Whether duty to advise purchasers against entering into
transaction – Whether duty to ensure advice fully understood – Whether solicitors in breach
of duty – Whether loss of purchasers’ investments legally attributable to any breach of duty –
Whether claim sufficiently pleaded – Whether purchasers’ claims should be struck out or
summary judgment entered for defendant solicitors
Amendment – Application to amend outside the applicable limitation period – Whether
amendments seeking to add a new cause of action – If so, whether amendments arising out of
the same, or substantially the same, facts as are already in issue – If so, whether the court
should exercise its general discretion to allow any, and if so which, amendments – Limitation
Act 1980, s. 35 (5) (a); CPR 17.4 (2)
The following cases are referred to in the judgment:
Ballinger v Mercer Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 996, [2014] 1 WLR 3597
Berezovsky v Abramovich [2011] EWCA Civ 153, [2011] 1 WLR 2290
Carradine Properties Ltd v DJ Freeman & Co [1999] Lloyd’s Rep PN 48
Co-Operative Group Ltd v Birse Developments Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 474; [2013] BLR 383
Dickinson v Lowery Unreported, 23 March 1990 (Auld J)
Elite Property Holdings Ltd v Barclays Bank Plc [2019] EWCA Civ 204
Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd v James Kemball Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 33, [2021] 1 CLC 284
Morris v Williams & Co Solicitors [2024] EWCA Civ 376, [2024] 3 WLR 693
Mulalley & Co. Ltd v Martlet Homes Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 32, 200 Con LR 1
Niprose Investments Ltd v Vincents Solicitors Ltd [2024] EWHC 801 (Ch)
Petersen v Personal Representatives of Cyril B. Rivlin [2002] EWCA Civ 194, [2002]
Lloyd’s Rep (PN) 386
Rubenstein v HSBC Bank Plc [2012] EWCA Civ 1184, [2013] PNLR 9
Savings and Investment Bank Ltd v Fincken [2001] EWCA Civ 1639
South Australia Asset Management Corporation v York Montague Limited [1997] AC 191
HIS HONOUR JUDGE HODGE KC
Approved Judgment
Niprose Investments v Vincents Solicitors
His Honour Judge Hodge KC:
Introduction
1. This considered judgment is a sequel to, and should be read in conjunction with, the
written judgment I handed down in this case on 17 April 2024 bearing the neutral
citation number [2024] EWHC 801 (Ch). That judgment was delivered on an
application by the 10 th defendant (‘Vincents’), issued on 21 February 2024, to strike
out a claim in professional negligence brought against Vincents by 35 separate
claimants (numbered 60 to 94) arising out of their purchase of 50 residential units in a
buyer-funded, off-plan development scheme in Liverpool 6, or for summary judgment
against the claimants under CPR 24. As I explained in my earlier judgment, each of
the purchasers lost substantial up-front payments on the failure of the development;
and they are now suing Vincents, who acted as their conveyancing solicitors, for
breach of duty.
2. The issues raised by Vincents’ application include the nature and extent of the duties
they owed to purchasers to advise them against the risks of investing in this particular
development; whether Vincents are in breach of such duties; the nature of the risks
against which the law imposed a duty of care on Vincents (the scope of duty issue);
whether the loss for which the claimants seek to recover damages is the consequence
of Vincents’ acts or omissions (the factual causation issue); whether there is a
sufficient nexus between a particular element of the harm for which the claimants
seek to recover damages and the subject-matter of Vincents’ duty of care (the duty-
nexus issue); and whether the claims against Vincents are sufficiently pleaded.
3. At the earlier hearing, on 20 March 2024, Vincents were represented by Mr Simon
Wilton KC, instructed by RPC, whilst the (then) 35 purchasers who had instructed
Vincents on their respective purchases were represented by Mr Laurie Scher (of
counsel), instructed by Walker Morris LLP. The same counsel and solicitors continue
to act in the case. Save where the context otherwise requires, in this judgment I shall
refer to Mr Scher’s lay clients as ‘the claimants’.
4. The background to Vincents’ application is set out in my earlier judgment; and I do
not propose to repeat it here. That judgment also contains (at Section III) a detailed
analysis of the existing pleadings, including (at [12-19]) the particulars of claim. For
the reasons set out in that judgment, I concluded that I should not finally determine
Vincents’ application on the materials then before the court. Rather, I should afford
the claimants an opportunity to amend their original statement of case. I indicated
that, at least on a preliminary, and provisional, basis, I had formed the view that there
might be some traction in at least some of the claimants’ assertions that Vincents
owed them duties to: (1) advise that the prescribed deposit-holding machinery
afforded no meaningful protection to the claimants, (2) advise against entering into
these particular purchase contracts, and (3) ensure that individual claimants properly
understood Vincents’ advice. However, I considered that the factual bases for such
duties needed to be properly pleaded out, both at a generic, and also at a granular, and
individual, level: see [76].
5. In summary, my order provided for:
(1) The claimants to file and serve draft amended particulars of claim;
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4 cases
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Charles Bellhouse v Zurich Insurance Plc
...Suisse Securities (Europe) Ltd [2023] EWHC 2759 (Comm) Niprose Investments Ltd v Vincents Solicitors Limited [2024] EWHC 801 (Ch) and [2025] EWHC 14 (Ch) Parallel Media LLC v Chamberlain [2014] EWHC 214 (QB) Sumitomo Bank v Banque Bruxelles Lambert SA [1997] 1 Lloyd's Rep 487 Tchenguiz v Gr......
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Christian Evans v Gennaro Pucci
...constitutes “the same or substantially the same” set of facts, a summary of the principles was set out in Niprose Investments Ltd v. Vincents Solicitors Ltd [2025] EWHC 14 (Ch), at [31]: “(1) Whether a new claim arises out of the same, or substantially the same, facts as an existing claim i......
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Niprose Investments Ltd and 30 Other Claimants v Vincents Solicitors Ltd
...on 17 April 2024 (bearing the neutral citation number [2024] EWHC 801 (Ch)) and 17 January 2025 (bearing the neutral citation number [2025] EWHC 14 (Ch)). The first of those judgments was delivered on the application of the 10 th defendant (‘ Vincents’) to strike out a claim in professiona......
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Amtrust Europe Ltd v MD Insurance Services Ltd
...constitutes “the same or substantially the same” set of facts, a summary of the principles was set out in Niprose Investments Ltd v Vincents Solicitors Ltd [2025] EWHC 14 (Ch), at [31]: “(1) Whether a new claim arises out of the same, or substantially the same, facts as an existing claim is......
