Basket case!

Judge hit with £160k bill after patio renovation – because of complaints over hanging baskets

LOVINGLY adorned with hanging baskets and potted plants, Suki Waschkuhn’s patio was supposed to help her escape the stresses of life as a high-flying lawyer.

But instead of offering an oasis of calm, the garden led to a three-year wrangle costing her £160,000.

Now, having been cleared of any wrongdoing, she is seeking damages of £500,000 to cover the ‘terrible’ fallout from the row.

The saga began in 2016 when the barrister and deputy district judge spent £50,000 on renovating the patio of her ground-floor flat in Wimbledon, south London.

Mrs Waschkuhn, 51, was ordered to stop the work at her £850,000 property when the building’s management company – partly made up of her fellow residents – complained she was in breach of her lease and had not obtained permission for the changes.

The company called in lawyers, who demanded her hanging baskets be removed on health and safety grounds along with all potted plants, a metal bell and a door number plaque at the patio’s entrance. They also called for an inspection of the new paving slabs, claiming they were lighter and thinner than the originals.

Mrs Waschkuhn, who lives with her banker husband Wolf, took her battle over the 42ft by 22ft plot to the Central London County Court.

The dispute cost her £160,000 in fees, including £100,000 she spent fighting a separate complaint to the Bar Standards Board after the firm’s directors claimed she had sent a torrent of emails amounting to harassment.

She was cleared of any wrongdoing in December 2017, and told she could keep her patio as it was. Judge Alan Johns QC, who described the dispute as ‘something of a war’, ordered the management company to pay half of her costs on top of their own £190,000 legal bill.

Now Mrs Waschkuhn has issued

Turf war: Suki Waschkuhn and, left, her patio fresh proceedings for £500,000 in wanted to create a loving living damages from the firm’s directors. space, that was all.’ She said the dispute had a ‘terrible’ Residents of the complex’s 104 impact on her mental health, flats – including Mrs Waschkuhn – led to a loss of income and damaged must now fork out around £2,000 her professional reputation. each for the legal costs.

‘I’ve got my patio but these people Edward Whitehorn, a neighbour made my life hell over trivial and chairman of the residents’ matters,’ she said. ‘I’ve got considerable management company, said the financial resources and dispute was a ‘dreadful waste of legal knowledge so they’ve chosen money’, adding: ‘Nobody has benefited the wrong person to mess with. I from this nightmare.’