MPP (Services) Ltd v Ratio Law: solicitors liable for £100,000 after drafting error voids legal charge

A Manchester firm of solicitors has been ordered to pay £100,000 plus interest after a fee-earner deleted the secured sum from a legal charge, leaving it void for uncertainty.

In MPP (Services) Ltd v Ratio Law Solicitors LLP [2026] EWHC 2852 (Comm), His Honour Judge Stephen Davies, sitting as a High Court judge in the Circuit Commercial Court in Manchester, rejected the defendant's arguments on scope of duty and contributory negligence but treated the claim as a genuine loss of a chance.

The error

The claimant had invested in a failed joint venture to open children's care homes with a business associate. After planning problems derailed the project, the associate agreed to grant a second charge over her house. One of the claimant's directors completed a Land Registry CH1 form, entering in panel 9 "2nd Charge of £180,000 payable within 24 months", and emailed it to the defendant asking whether it had been completed correctly.

The fee-earner, a partner in the firm, deleted the words "2nd Charge of £180,000" and inserted nothing in their place. As executed, the charge secured "the sums detailed in panel 9" but identified no sum at all. When the relationship broke down in 2019, the chargor argued that the charge was void for uncertainty. The claimant accepted that the point was unanswerable and agreed at mediation to cancel the registration.

Breach was admitted. Liability and quantum went to a full trial.

Witnesses and findings

The judge preferred the directors' evidence to that of the fee-earner and the chargor. He rejected as speculation the defence case that the charge was described as securing a small future loan, and criticised the firm's response to the letter before action, which omitted the deletion and was positively misleading.

The chargor, an experienced businesswoman familiar with legal documents, had signed knowing she was giving security over her house, and her misrepresentation case had very poor prospects.

Duty, nexus and contributory negligence

Applying Manchester Building Society v Grant Thornton [2021] UKSC 20, the judge held that the lost opportunity to rely on the charge fell squarely within the scope of the defendant's duty, with a sufficient nexus to the loss. The client did not need to explain the underlying commercial arrangement in detail. The contributory negligence defence failed because the information the director gave was not, in substance, inaccurate.

The judge also rejected the claimant's argument that the fee-earner should have redrafted panel 9 as an agreed liquidated debt. Following Mainland v Upjohn (1889) 41 Ch D 126 and Close Asset Finance Ltd v Taylor [2006] EWCA Civ 788, a properly drafted charge would still have left the chargor free to dispute how much was owed.

Valuing the chance

Applying Allied Maples v Simmons & Simmons [1995] 1 WLR 1602, the judge took a middle path. He disregarded speculative arguments, treated conclusive ones as extinguishing the chance, and blended the rest into a single monetary figure, taking care not to stack percentages on percentages.

The house was worth about £300,000, with equity of around £180,000. The claimant had good prospects on liability, but costs and the limited headroom for enforcement pointed towards settlement. The judge found that the parties would most likely have settled for £100,000, funded by a remortgage, broadly equal to the fees paid to the chargor plus the £20,000 loan and interest. A contested trial would not have produced a materially different figure.

No separate award was made for the costs of the failed claim against the chargor. The judge's provisional view was that interest should run at 3% over base from October 2021.