Wine tycoon in court over £3m flat with no curtains

A VINEYARD boss is locked in a High Court fight after his neighbour sued him for not putting up curtains in his £3.2million flat.

Meghdad Farrokhzad, a businessman, claims that Rollo Gabb, the head of a South African vineyard, breached the rules defining what were suitable curtains and floor coverings in his flat.

When Mr Gabb, whose wines are carried by Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s, bought the luxury threestorey flat in 2007, he agreed to be bound by covenants in the lease putting limits on how he could decorate the property, a judge heard.

But Mr Farrokhzad – who acquired the freehold of the building at the same time he bought an art gallery underneath Mr Gabb’s flat in 2020 – complained that his new neighbour had, among other breaches of the covenants, failed to keep the windows “properly curtained in a style appropriate to a high-class private residence”.

The covenants also stipulated that the flat be carpeted appropriately.

He attempted to strip Mr Gabb, 50, of his lease on the flat by suing him in a tribunal, but lost his case in April last year.

But now he himself is being sued by Mr Gabb, who claims the curtain complaints were part of a “campaign” to thwart his attempts to sell the apartment – either because Mr Farrokhzad wanted it himself or out of “anger” following an earlier row.

Mr Gabb says Mr Farrokhzad, 41, has behaved “unreasonably” in blocking his attempts to sell the flat, in Kensington, central London, causing one sale to fall through and putting another at risk.

Farrokhzad denied any “unreasonable” behaviour and told the court that, far from blocking his neighbour’s sale, he would be happy for him to leave and bring their “strained relations” to an end.

The judge has reserved his ruling on the case after a two-day hearing, to be given at a later date.