Professional negligence limitation periods in England and Wales — how the Limitation Act 1980 shapes PI exposure

Reviewed by Matthew Bartlett, Director · Last reviewed 2026-06-22

A working reference on when a claim in professional negligence is time-barred, why claims-made policies interact awkwardly with statutory limitation, and what a professional firm should record about the ticking clock on live matters.

The two statutory clocks — contract and tort

A client can typically sue a professional in either contract or tort — sometimes both. The clocks run differently.

Contract. Under section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980, an action founded on a simple contract must be brought within six years of the date on which the cause of action accrued. The cause of action accrues when the contract is breached, not when loss crystallises. If the retainer required the professional to give correct advice on completion of a transaction and the wrong advice was given on that date, the contract clock starts on that day. This is often earlier than the tort clock and less generous to the claimant.

Tort. Under section 2 of the 1980 Act, an action in tort must be brought within six years, but the clock starts on the date the cause of action accrued — for negligence, when damage was suffered, not when the negligent act was committed. This is set out in the seminal case of Pirelli General Cable Works Ltd v Oscar Faber & Partners [1983] 2 AC 1 in the building context, and applied in professional negligence in Forster v Outred & Co [1982] 1 WLR 86.

The practical significance: a client who could not sue in contract because the six-year clock ran from an old breach may still sue in tort if damage did not become measurable until later. The two limbs of Henderson v Merrett Syndicates Ltd [1995] 2 AC 145 confirmed that concurrent duties in contract and tort can co-exist, allowing the claimant to choose the more favourable limitation route.

Section 14A — the latent-damage extension

Where the negligent act caused damage that was not reasonably discoverable at the time — a common feature of professional negligence — section 14A provides an additional discretionary window of three years from the date the claimant had, or ought reasonably to have had, the knowledge required to bring an action.

"Knowledge" for s.14A(6) purposes has been extensively litigated. It requires knowledge of the material facts about the damage, that the damage was attributable to the act or omission alleged to be negligent, and knowledge of the identity of the defendant. It does not require knowledge that the act was negligent as a matter of law — that is a legal, not factual, conclusion.

The test for "reasonably" is objective, based on the knowledge a claimant with the relevant profession and access to advice would have acquired. Constructive knowledge under s.14A(10) means facts that were reasonably ascertainable, whether or not the claimant actually knew them.

Haward v Fawcetts [2006] UKHL 9 clarified that a claimant needs enough knowledge to make it reasonable to begin investigating whether there was a claim. Vague suspicion is not enough; hard evidence of damage attributable to a specific act is. The threshold is low but not trivial.

Section 14B — the fifteen-year long-stop

Section 14B, inserted by the Latent Damage Act 1986, imposes a hard long-stop of fifteen years from the date of the negligent act or omission, or the last act in a continuing course of negligence, regardless of when damage was discovered. This is designed to give professionals a definitive endpoint after which they can be certain no claim will be brought.

The fifteen-year period does not extend because of concealment under s.32 in the same way primary limitation does. It is an absolute bar. In practical terms, a professional firm that retires or ceases practice can be reasonably confident that no claim will arise after fifteen years — subject to fraud and to the Building Safety Act extensions discussed below.

Section 32 — fraud, concealment and mistake

Section 32 postpones the running of the limitation period where the action is based upon fraud, where any relevant fact has been deliberately concealed, or where the action is for relief from the consequences of a mistake. The period does not begin until the claimant has discovered the fraud, concealment or mistake, or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it.

This is particularly relevant for professional negligence claims where the professional knew or ought to have known that they had made an error and did not disclose it to the client. The concealment need not be positive misrepresentation; deliberate failure to disclose a known error can amount to concealment for s.32 purposes.

Cave v Robinson Jarvis & Rolf [2002] UKHL 18 clarified that "deliberate" concealment requires intention to conceal. Negligent failure to spot an error is not concealment. But once the professional realises the error and chooses not to inform the client, the concealment clock can start.

Personal injury — section 11 and the three-year clock

For professional negligence claims that produce personal injury — clinical negligence being the paradigm — section 11 imposes a three-year period running from the later of the date the cause of action accrued and the date of knowledge under section 14. Section 33 gives the court a discretion to disapply the primary period.

This shorter clock, combined with the discretion under s.33, means clinical and personal-injury negligence sits under a different regime. Most professional indemnity policies for architects, engineers, surveyors and accountants exclude bodily injury claims, so this section principally applies to healthcare professionals.

Building Safety Act 2022 — the thirty-year and fifteen-year extensions

The Building Safety Act 2022 amended the Defective Premises Act 1972 in two directions. Section 135 of the 2022 Act:

• Extended the limitation period for retrospective claims under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972 (dwellings not fit for habitation) to thirty years from completion, replacing the previous six years. This is the retrospective extension.
• Extended prospective claims under the same section to fifteen years from completion.

Section 135 also introduced a new section 2A into the Defective Premises Act 1972, extending claims to buildings that contain dwellings, with a fifteen-year prospective period. These changes affect architects, engineers, contractors, surveyors, principal designers and principal contractors involved in dwellings that are not fit for habitation.

For professional firms in the built environment, the practical consequence is that a claim which was time-barred under the six-year rule may now be resurrected under the thirty-year retrospective window. Insurers reacted by tightening capacity for pre-2022 completion dates and by adding exclusions or sub-limits for Building Safety Act claims. See our BSA 2022 s.135 deep-dive.

Solicitors — how the limitation clock affects conveyancing PI claims

Conveyancing claims often turn on when damage crystallised rather than when the act took place. In Bell v Peter Browne & Co [1990] 2 QB 495, the Court of Appeal held that damage on a failed transfer of legal title occurred at completion. In Nykredit Mortgage Bank plc v Edward Erdman Group Ltd (No 2) [1997] 1 WLR 1627, the House of Lords held that a lender suffered damage from a negligent valuation once the actual value of the security fell below the borrower's obligations, not necessarily at the date of the loan.

For a firm on a claims-made policy, the relevant question is not just whether the client can still sue — it is whether the client will notify the claim within a policy year that has PI cover in place. A claim time-barred by primary limitation but subject to a section 14A extension can still be viable and can hit the firm mid-policy.

Interaction with claims-made insurance

Professional indemnity cover in the UK is written on a claims-made basis. The trigger is when the claim is first notified to the insurer, not when the negligent act was committed. This produces a tension with statutory limitation:

• A claim that reaches the client at year fourteen (still within the section 14B long-stop) triggers the firm's PI policy in force at year fourteen — which may have different terms, limit and excess from the policy in force when the negligent act occurred.
• A claim that would have been time-barred but for a section 32 concealment argument is still notifiable when the claimant makes it.
• Run-off cover carried by a retired firm needs to align with the section 14B long-stop for the firm to be genuinely closed to exposure. Six years is not enough. See our run-off cover explainer.

For SRA-regulated solicitors, the Minimum Terms and Conditions require six years' run-off cover as a mandatory minimum, with the Solicitors Indemnity Fund handling claims beyond that period. See our SIF explainer. For architects, ARB Standard 8 does not fix a run-off period but requires "adequate and appropriate" cover — which most reasonably resolved practices interpret as at least six to ten years.

Fair-presentation implications

The Insurance Act 2015 requires commercial clients to make a fair presentation of the risk to the insurer at inception, renewal and material variation. A professional firm that is aware of a matter capable of turning into a claim before the primary limitation period expires — even if not yet notified as a claim — has a duty to disclose that "circumstance" to its PI insurer.

Failure to disclose a known circumstance can produce a coverage dispute later when the claim crystallises. Our fair-presentation reference is at Insurance Act 2015 fair presentation.

A practical checklist for professional firms

1. Record the completion date of every substantive piece of work — the trigger for the primary contract clock and for section 14B fifteen-year long-stop.
2. Where damage was not immediately apparent, maintain an audit trail so that "reasonable discoverability" under section 14A can be evidenced later.
3. Review any known error or complaint against s.32 concealment risk. A frank note to file at the time of discovery is a defence against a concealment-based extension.
4. For built-environment work post-1972, treat BSA 2022 s.135 as a live risk. Any completion between roughly 1992 and 2022 is potentially in scope of the thirty-year retrospective window if the dwelling is not fit for habitation.
5. Match your run-off strategy to section 14B (fifteen years) plus a margin, not just to the six-year primary period.
6. Notify potential circumstances to your PI insurer at the earliest opportunity — do not wait for the client to sue.

Related Apex references

• First 30 days of a PI notification
• Run-off cover explained
• Insurance Act 2015 — fair presentation
• Building Safety Act 2022 s.135 deep-dive
• Retroactive dates in PI policies
• Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978