‘Land grab’ row costs neighbour over £500k
A MOTIVATIONAL speaker who was sued when his £4million house was built too close to his neighbours yesterday lost a High Court fight to cover his £532,000 costs with an insurance payout.
Multi-millionaire Alex MacPhail, 56, got into a legal row with Tom and Helen Gueterbock, who claimed he staged a “land grab” when a cellar at his new six-bedroom house crossed the boundary between their homes.
The couple said it “trespassed” by about 18 inches under their property in Wandsworth, south London.
And they said the side wall above ground was built too far over a passageway between their homes, narrowing it to less than 3ft.
Web and app developer Mr Gueterbock, 54, is the son of Labour peer Anthony Gueterbock, the 18th Baron Berkley.
Demolish
He and his wife demanded Mr MacPhail fill in some of the basement and partially demolish the new house above ground. But shortly before the case went to trial last year, Mr MacPhail agreed to pay them £237,000 in damages and costs and fund £12,000 of work on the passageway.
Meanwhile, his own legal costs came to about £283,000.
So he sued developers Henderson Court Ltd and their insurer, Allianz
Insurance
Plc. He argued
HCL was liable for his losses resulting from the build project and Allianz should indemnify it.
But while Mr MacPhail won his claim against HCL at Central London County Court, his claim that the insurer should pay was rejected.
Judge Nicholas Parfitt said in May HCL had “failed to build the property in a good and workmanlike manner” and should have known building so close to the Gueterbocks’ home might cause an issue.
That meant the problems caused were not “accidental” so were not covered by the insurance policy.
Mr MacPhail appealed to the High Court where his lawyer Sebastien Kokelaar argued Judge Parfitt misapplied the law in deciding whether or not what happened was an accident.
But yesterday Mr Justice Marcus Smith upheld the original ruling and said Judge Parfitt “was entitled to conclude that there was a high degree of recklessness and that the claim under the policy was not accidental”.
The High Court ruling means HCL is liable to Mr MacPhail, but Allianz does not have to make a pay-out. Companies House records reveal that HCL has had strikeoff applications brought against it before being discontinued or suspended and a receivership manager recently “ceased to act”.