Business and its Legislative Foundations

Business and its Legislative Foundations: A Real Estate Agent Committing Negligent Misstatement

Business and its Legislative Foundations: A Real Estate Agent CommittingNegligent Misstatement

A person who acts as an intermediary, in between buyers and sellers of real estate is known as a real estate agent. These agents are in a professional relationship with their clients. In the course of leasing or selling a property, the agent makes statements regarding the property. It may emerge after the sale that, the agent's statement was not correct, regarding the property. The property might worth less than, what it was presented to be by the real estate agent. If the purchaser wishes to claim the compensation against such misstatement, it is legitimate. There might be two situations, the relation with the agent might be contractual (existence of contract) or is might b non-contractual. In case, there is a contract the purchaser can sue the agent in contract. In case of nonexistence of contract, the purchaser may turn to tort of negligence. This essay discusses the liability of real estate agents in the tort of negligence arising from negligent misstatement.

The tort of negligence is actually a combination of two words, Tort and Negligence. The word Tort is of Latin origin “Tortus” and it means twisted. The tort was used in old times as “wrong” in English language, however, now it is used as a legal term only. The one who commits a tortious act is termed as Torfeasor.

The term negligence has its own meaning in law. It means the failure to perform the appropriate efforts (Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2011, n.d.), or it may involve a tort having breach (violation) of duty (www.oup.com/uk, 2012, p. 5.).

While there are certain types of negligence, perhaps the most important of them today is the Tort of negligence. It derives its importance from the principles it is founded on. The renowned case of Donoghue v Stevenson is considered the beginning for law of negligence. In this case, Mrs Donoghue went in a public bar in paisley, where she consumed a drink having decomposed snail in it. The bottle was opaque, and it is of no surprise that she was not able to see it at the time of drinking it. Her friends and the shopkeeper were also unaware of such decomposed snail presence inside the bottle. Later, Mrs Donoghue sued the manufacturer, Mr Stevenson, for damages on account of negligence. She could not have sued that the manufacturer on contract, since she was not in a contractual relation with him. The House of Lord's majority supported the claim of Mrs Donoghue that, this was an act of negligence. However, there was a difference in attributing the factor, upon which this claim was being held valid. Like Lord Atkin attributed it to care for neighbours on reasonable bases.

A tort is defined as a civil wrong, where the rights and obligations are determined by the law and not the ...