Doctors claim architect ‘used their cash to do up his home’
Revamp cost £3.2m... £1m over the quotation
A WEALTHY doctor couple who spent £ 3.2million doing up their home are suing their architect for allegedly using their money to put in a granny flat at his own property.
Multimillionaire medics Dr Stephen Pereira and his wife Dr Preeti Pereira enlisted top architect Simon Whitehead for the refurbishment of their south London home, which began in 2018.
But the project, which included a basement covering the footprint of their £5million-plus home, overran
‘Expensive and luxurious extras’
by a year and ended up costing them more than £3million to complete, they say – £1million above the original quote.
The couple are suing Mr Whitehead, his company and his solicitor wife Victoria, claiming the project overran because the architect had the builder work on his own home – ‘secretly’ using the Pereiras’ money – at the same time.
The doctors claim payments they made towards their own project were diverted by the builder to fund works at the Whiteheads’ homes in south London and Kent, plus their offices near London Bridge.
But Mr and Mrs Whitehead say the claims are ‘scandalous’ and blame ‘expensive and luxurious’ extras added to the Pereiras’ project, along with failings by the builder and Covid’s impact, for the extra cost and time spent. Dr Stephen Pereira, 60, is an Oxford-educated psychiatrist and cognitive behavioural therapist, while his wife Preeti, 60, is a medical doctor, specialising in epidemiology.
According to documents filed at the High Court, the Pereiras enlisted Simon Whitehead Architects to provide architectural services on ‘major’ works at their home, which they bought in 2005 for nearly £2million, but is valued at more than £5million.
But they say that throughout the project the contractor was instructed to carry out works at properties owned by the Whiteheads. It included maintaining their East Dulwich home and a ‘granny annexe’ at their house in Chainhurst, near Tonbridge, Kent.
The expected completion date for the Pereiras’ work had been the end of March 2020, but the works were not complete until April last year, having cost more than £3.2million, the Pereiras say.
They claim they have learned from the builder that the architect had ‘directed him to, effectively, misdirect the payments the claimants were making for the project in order to finance the Whitehead projects’.
The Whiteheads’ barrister Imran Benson said the builder has disappeared and, now upset, the Pereiras are bringing the claim to force their architect to pay half the cost of their building work.