A family have been told they can’t claim damages from a engineer who inspected their home but missed some faults.

The case in the High Court heard the house in Upper Cronk Orry on Ramsey Road in Laxey had a leaking roof, which wasn’t spotted by structural engineer John Gray.

Peter Masters and his wife Maureen claimed Mr Gray had been negligent when he overlooked the problem.

The leaking roof only came to light three years later when a decorator claimed some walls were too wet to wallpaper.

Mr and Mrs Masters alleged Mr Gray would have spotted the flaws if he’d carried out an inspection properly.

But he said the property didn’t belong to the couple when he visited it, and he could only have found the cause by opening up a wall.

He said the problem had only become apparent when water started leaking into the house and so there had been no cause to investigate further when he carried out his inspection.

Acting Deemster Sullivan agreed, and said although he sympathised with the Masters family, Mr Gray was not at fault.