A former Goldman Sachs banker is facing a £200,000 court bill after being sued by millionaire neighbours who claimed that a refurbishment of her Knightsbridge flat left their home plagued by extraordinary levels of dust, preventing them from hanging their laundry indoors.
Leda Sara, a former banker turned interior designer and estate agent for the ultra-wealthy, was sued by Samuel Wagner and his wife Jennifer over a mammoth five-year stop-start renovation of her £1.6 million apartment in exclusive Lennox Gardens.
Mr Wagner, a Swedish property firm boss, and his wife complained of ceilings cracking due to incessant banging from the flat above and extraordinary amounts of dust generated as Ms Sara's home was stripped back to a shell. Leaks from a sprinkler and a defective shower tray after the building work was eventually completed also led to significant damage, with one of the ceilings in their £1.4 million flat collapsing, they claimed.
After a trial at Mayor's and City County Court, Judge Stephen Hellman ruled in the couple's favour, awarding them over £40,000 in damages and ordering Ms Sara to pay most of her neighbours' legal fees, with £91,000 upfront towards an estimated total of £150,000. She will also have to cover her own legal costs.
Although the judge said she was not liable for any leaks, he found Ms Sara responsible for the work taking so long to complete, causing her neighbours annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort, and anxiety over an extended period.
Background of the Dispute
The court heard that the dispute arose in a Grade-II listed building in Lennox Gardens, one of the most exclusive garden squares in Knightsbridge, where houses are valued at up to £40 million. The houses surrounding the gardens were built around 1886, and the 1.139-acre private communal gardens in the centre were laid out on the pitch of the late 19th-century Prince's Club's former Prince's Cricket Ground. It was also reportedly where James Gilbey met Diana, Princess of Wales, in his apartment during their romance from the summer of 1989, as later revealed in the notorious Squidgygate tapes.
Ms Sara, who now runs a company focused on acquiring and managing luxury properties for high net worth individuals, bought the apartment above Mr and Mrs Wagner's flat in 2014 and almost immediately ran into problems as she proceeded to completely strip it back to a shell.
Impact on the Wagners
In his evidence to the court, Mr Wagner complained of extraordinary amounts of relentless dust, which entered through windows, cracks in the ceiling, and on foot from communal areas, and meant they could not hang laundry in the flat. The work was in breach of a restriction on Ms Sara's property and was paused for some time as she negotiated a licence to complete it with the freeholder of the building.
Work resumed in March 2018 and was stipulated under the licence to be finished within eight months, but overran and was not signed off as complete until April 2019. The Wagners complained that living beneath a stripped-out shell for so long made it hard to keep their flat warm, while pigeons began to roost in the unoccupied flat. They were forced to move out three times: first while works were being done, and twice again in 2019 and 2020 when leaks from a shower and sprinkler system occurred after the main job was signed off. Mr Wagner told the judge that one of the moves happened when, after seeing damp patches caused by the leaky shower above, his ceiling collapsed.
Legal Arguments
Ms Sara was sued for negligence in not replacing her builders and for the nuisance of the extended delay and the work itself, which had taken an unreasonable amount of time. The couple also claimed that delays in certifying that the leaks were fixed caused a sale of their flat to fall through, costing them another £60,000.
Ms Sara, 50, defended the case, with her barrister Fasiel Sadiq telling the judge that she should not be held liable for the work of third-party contractors. In her evidence, she admitted her flat was left a shell but insisted it was watertight and that she had never seen any access points through which birds might enter.
Judge's Ruling
Giving judgment, Judge Hellman exonerated her of any blame for the leaks, saying that she had passed on all complaints to her builder and had never taken on the position of project manager. He said that after leaks were identified, she had taken reasonable steps to prevent water damage by telling her then tenant not to use the shower, adding that it was reasonable for the defendant to require the contractor who installed the shower to fix the leak. The claim for the alleged lost sale of their flat was also dismissed because there was no duty on Ms Sara to provide proof that the leaks were remedied.
However, he found Ms Sara liable for delays and overrunning of the work, resulting in annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort, and anxiety for her neighbours. She had started the work in 2014 without the necessary authorisation from the freeholder, resulting in a long pause during which her neighbours lived beneath an incomplete shell. Even after work resumed in 2018, it took longer than the eight months stipulated in the licence. The judge stated that Mr and Mrs Wagner should not have been exposed to the nuisance of extended works and that the works were not completed within a reasonable period, thus becoming a nuisance.
He awarded the couple £41,332 in damages and ordered Ms Sara to pay 80% of their legal fees, with £91,000 upfront towards a total of about £150,000. She will also have to pay her own legal costs.
