A home owner is planning to put his doomed west London mansion back on the market just months after his previous buyers bagged a £3.5million refund because it was invaded by moths.
High-end property developer William Woodward-Fisher was ordered to take back the luxury home in plush Notting Hill earlier this year when Iya Patarkatsishvili and Dr Yevhen Hunyak won a High Court battle regarding the pests.
The couple sued the seller, a former Team GB rower, for not telling them about the moth saga which they said reminded them of the iconic horror film Alien.
They claimed the creatures ruined their clothes, spoiled their wine and forced them to install 400 traps around their house.
Now the Daily Mail can reveal Mr Woodward-Fisher is having another go at selling the property, with new pictures showing extensive building work taking place.
A group of builders were spotted regularly come in and out of the unwanted home, with large black sheets covering its windows and the sound of renovation work echoing down the street.
One worker, from a company called Sitek Joinery, explained the house would be back on sale as soon as his team left the site.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘We’ve been here two months.
‘There were moths here when we arrived. They had been clearing them out and they ended up clearing them all out.
William Woodward-Fisher, pictured outside London’s High Court this year, is planning to put his doomed west London mansion back on the market just months after his previous buyers bagged a £33million refund because it was invaded by moths
Iya Patarkatsishvili and Dr Yevhen Hunyak, pictured, won a High Court battle regarding the pests
‘We’re here for four or five more weeks.
‘The owner [William Woodward-Fisher] is putting the house on the market. It will go up after we’re done here.
‘We’re just plasterboarding, sanding doing stuff like that.
‘We’re doing up the swimming pool and gym too.’
But neighbours, still reeling from a miserable moth ordeal which spread to their homes, reckon he has no chance of finding a buyer.
A man living opposite revealed that things were better in the old days and that the pest infestation had spread to his own house.
The neighbour, who has been in the same place for 35 years, said: ‘It used to be beautiful. Edward Grosvenor had it and it was just that one building.
‘Then the rest was added on.
Now the Daily Mail can reveal Mr Woodward-Fisher is having another go at flogging the place, with new pictures showing extensive building work taking place at the property and black sheets covering the windows
A group of builders regularly come in and out of the unwanted home, with loud construction sounds echoing down the sleepy London street
‘They are clearly trying to sell it but it will be hard.
‘They also now have someone in residence just there on the top floor.
‘And, yes, we had moths here over the road. It happened at the same time. We had never had moths before.
‘They ate everything. Including my cashmere jumpers, including this one.’
Another neighbour added that the moth crisis had become infamous in this expensive pocket of west London.
‘That’s the Moth House,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about this building work.
‘Everyone in this neighbourhood was concerned about moths at that time.’
Mr Justice Fancourt, ruling at London’s High Court in February, found Mr Woodward-Fisher had given ‘false’ answers about the state of the sumptuous Horbury Villa and failed ‘honestly to disclose’ the ‘serious infestation’ of moths.
Neighbours, still reeling from a miserable moth ordeal which spread to their homes, reckon he has no chance of finding a buyer for the place, pictured
The winning couple laid bare their ordeal in the weeks after the judgment – with Dr Hunyak saying of the 11,000 sq ft, seven-bedroom, 11-bathroom home: ‘It was crawling with larvae.
‘You know that movie Alien? When they were trying to work out where the aliens were, and they were actually behind the walls. It was like that.’
His wife Ms Patarkatsishvili, a theatre director and human rights activist, said one worker on the property suffered a panic attack when confronted by the pest problem.
She told the Sunday Times the contractor ‘couldn’t work once he pulled back the wall and there were so many moths in the wool’, adding: ‘It’s just disgusting. So he left and said he couldn’t do it.’
Ms Patarkatsishvili, the daughter of a billionaire Georgian oligarch, had bought the luxury mansion with her dentist husband in May 2019.
They paid £32.5million for the early Victorian pile, which boasted a pool and spa, gym, wine room, library and cinema, and also a ‘snoring room’ specially kitted to guarantee a peaceful night’s sleep.
But a few days after they moved in, Ms Patarkatsishvili spotted the first signs of a winged ‘infestation’, telling her husband: ‘There’s a moth flying around here.’
The couple told in court of having to swat away 100 moths a day, prompting them to launch a multi-million-pound claim against Mr Woodward-Fisher, 68.
One neighbour added that the moth crisis had become infamous in this expensive pocket of west London
Suing to reverse the sale, Dr Hunyak told how the the moth plague hit a point where insects were landing on the couple and their two children’s toothbrushes, cutlery and plates of food.
He also described having to tip away glasses of wine after discovering moths floating there – while accusing Mr Woodward-Fisher of failing to disclose previous moth issues when answering pre-sale enquiries about the possibility of ‘vermin’ and defects.
Mr Justice Fancourt ruled in the suing couple’s favour, finding that they had been led into the purchase by Mr Woodward-Fisher’s ‘false’ answers about the state of the property.
He said Mr Woodward-Fisher had failed ‘honestly to disclose’ the ‘serious infestation’ and reports concerning work required on the insulation where the moths had nested.
Although he had not been deliberately trying to deceive the purchasers, he ‘simply wanted to sell the house and move on’ and knew disclosure would cause the sale to ‘go off’.
The judge made an order rescinding the sale, with Mr Woodward-Fisher having to pay back the £32.5million purchase price, less about £6million to recognise their use of the property since the purchase.
However, they will also receive about £4million in additional damages in relation to the infestation, including £15,000 for ruined clothes and the £3.7million they paid in Stamp Duty – taking the value of their payout to around £30million.
During the trial of the claim last year, the judge heard that Mr Woodward-Fisher bought the site in 2011 and lived there with interior designer wife Kerry, 64.
Ms Patarkatsishvili and Dr Hunyak, pictured, successfully sued Mr Woodward-Fisher for not telling them about the moth saga which they said reminded them of the horror film Alien
The mansion was extended and radically remodelled by Mr Woodward-Fisher to about 11,000 sq ft, before it was sold on to Dr Hunyak, 50, and Ms Patarkatsishvili, 41, in 2019.
Dr Hunyak is a paediatric dentist who practises in Chelsea, while his wife is daughter of Badri Patarkatsishvili, a Georgian businessman who fell out with Vladimir Putin and set up home in the UK in 2000 before dying of heart failure in 2008.
They moved in with their daughter, now 16, 14-year-old son and labrador Loki – after ‘years searching for the perfect home’.
The couple, who previously rented a property in nearby Marble Arch having moved from Moscow to London in 2008, said they never spotted any moth issues during several visits to the Notting Hill home before buying.
But they told of spotting the insects within days of moving in and unpacking – and Ms Patarkatsishvili also recalled having ’embarrassing situations’ with guests.
She added: ‘Not only has it damaged clothes, but it was in the food cupboards – our son went to get some cereal, and larvae were in there, so we had to put everything in containers. It’s just absolutely disgusting.’
The couple said they spent more than £270,000 trying to tackle the issues, including pulling back walls and excavating ceilings, while being told by pest control firms that the problems had been raised before.
They have been looking for a new home elsewhere, viewing a potential property not far away near Hyde Park in February.
They moved in with their daughter, now 16, 14-year-old son and labrador Loki – after ‘years searching for the perfect home’… but it turned into a nightmare
Mr Woodward-Fisher denied all claims, insisting that he gave honest and full replies on the pre-sale enquiries form, and that as far as he knew any previous moth problems had been eliminated by the time of the move.
Giving his judgment, Mr Justice Fancourt said Dr Hunyak had at times ‘exaggerated’ the extent of ongoing problems, but found that Mr Woodward-Fisher had given ‘false’ answers in the pre-contract questions.
‘I do not find that he was consciously trying to deceive the claimants,’ the judge said.
‘He simply wanted to sell the house and move on. As he admitted in cross-examination, disclosure of the infestation would likely have caused the sale to go off, and he would have been left needing to move out of the house and do expensive works to remove all the woollen insulation.
‘In my judgment, Mr Woodward-Fisher was hoping that the problem might have gone away and he was willing to take the risk that he was wrong about that.
‘He stated that he was unaware of any defect in the property that was not apparent on inspection…that was false, because the infested condition of the insulation in the floor voids and internal walls of the house was such a defect.’
A spokeswoman for Woodward-Fisher said at the time that he ‘strongly disputes the claims being reported regarding the recent High Court judgment’.
She said: ‘Whilst respecting the court’s findings, it is essential to clarify several points.
‘Mr Woodward-Fisher believes he acted in good faith and relied on legal advice during the sale process. He used a professionally recommended, warrantied moth-proof insulation.
‘Claims that the living space was “crawling with moths” do not reflect the evidence or findings during the trial and appear designed to sensationalise the issue.
‘Expert testimony confirmed that the infestation was primarily hidden behind walls in the insulation and was not readily visible.
‘The argument over whether moths are “vermin” reflects a technical and subjective legal interpretation.
‘Mr Woodward-Fisher’s understanding was supported by legal advice at the time, and he was entitled to rely on this.
‘The court acknowledged that the claimants resided in and made extensive use of the property for nearly six years, as reflected in the judgment’s financial adjustments.
‘This undermines the claims about the property’s condition.
‘Mr Woodward-Fisher intends to seek permission to appeal.’
