Ministry of Housing and Local Government v Sharp [1970] 2 QB 223, is an English tort law case concerning assumption of responsibility.
An employee of the authority failed to exercise reasonable skill and care in searching for entries in the local land charges register.
Lord Denning MR held the local authority was liable to the Ministry for the employee's incompetence.
At 268 he rejected that a duty of care only arose when there was a voluntary assumption of responsibility, rather "from the fact that the person making it knows, or ought to know, that others, being his neighbours in this regard, would act on the faith of the statement being accurate."
They are only shorthand to bring in the entire rule-making power contained in section 15 (6) of the Land Charges Act 1925.
If Parliament had intended it to be limited to particular subsections, such as section 15 (6) (a) or (c), it would have singled them out for special mention; whereas, instead, it left it quite general.
It is he who is responsible for their due performance, not the council: see Stanbury v Exeter Corporation [1905] 2 KB 838 .
(Some difference was suggested because originally the local land registrar was only concerned with charges in favour of his own council.
The fundamental obligation of the registrar is to keep the register, and in return he receives the prescribed fees.
By requiring his charge to be entered on the register, an incumbrancer is entitled to regard it as safe, not only against the owner of the land, but also against any purchaser from him.
By requiring a search, a purchaser is entitled to know exactly what charges incumber the land, and to adjust his price accordingly.
He omits to enter a charge: or wrongly gives a clear certificate: with the result that the incumbrancer loses the benefit of it.
He may, and often does, get a clerk or minor official, to do the duty for him, but, if so, he is answerable for the transgression of the subordinate: see Sanderson v Baker (1772) 3 Wils.
In our present case, under the Land Charges Act 1925, Parliament has not exempted the registrar from liability.
Lord Mansfield held that it was his duty to see that the judgments were duly entered and he could not excuse himself by delegating it to others.
"Lord Mansfield intimated, that it very much concerned the chief clerk, to take care that judgment be actually entered up upon the roll in due time, and docketed: for that after he has received his fees for making such entry, he would be liable to an action upon the case, to be brought by the purchaser who should have become liable to it, and had searched the roll without finding it entered up."
After those cases there were several statutes which put upon the chief clerks of the courts the duty of keeping registers of judgments, is pendens, and so forth; but did not provide for mistakes.
I have no doubt that, in case an entry was omitted, the chief clerk would be liable to compensate anyone who suffered by the mistake.
Section 2 (2) of the Conveyancing Act, 1882, said that, on requisition being made, "the proper officer shall diligently make the search required, and shall make and file in the office a certificate setting forth the result thereof" and it provided (3) that the certificate was conclusive in favour of a purchaser.
But a civil action was clearly imported on the well-known principles set out in Comyns' Digest (Com.
1, p. 442), exemplified in Dawson & Co v Bingley Urban District Council [1911] 2 KB 149 and restated in Cutler v Wandsworth Stadium Ltd [1949] AC 399, especially as, at that time in 1882, there was no remedy at common law for negligence in giving a certificate: see Le Lievre v Gould [1893] 1 QB 491, per Bowen LJ at p. 502.
In 1925 when Parliament set up the land charges register, it repeated in substance section 2 of the Act of 1882, but, significantly enough, dropped the word "diligently."
It said in section 17(2): "The registrar shall, thereupon, make the search required and shall issue a certificate setting forth the result thereof."
If a mistake is made, whether by negligence or not, the loss should fall on the officer responsible: and not on the innocent incumbrancer.
So he himself is responsible for breach of those duties and not the council: see Stanbury v Exeter Corporation [1905] 2 KB 838.
That was a duty which he owed to any person - incumbrancer or purchaser - whom he knew, or ought to have known, might be injured if he made a mistake.
The case comes four square within the principles which are stated in Candler v Crane, Christmas & Co [1951] 2 KB 164, 179-185, and which were approved by the House of Lords in Hedley Byrne & Co Ltd v Heller & Partners Ltd [1964] AC 465.
He said that a duty to use due care (where there was no contract) only arose when there was a voluntary assumption of responsibility.
I think they used those words because of the special circumstances of that case (where the bank disclaimed responsibility).
It is owed, of course, to the person to whom the certificate is issued and whom he knows is going to act on it, see the judgment of Cardozo J. in Glanzer v. Shepard (1922) 233 N.Y. 236 .