An ex-banker has been sued for £100,000 by her Knightsbridge neighbours over claims her leaking shower made their home flood.
Swedish property firm boss Samuel Wagner and his wife Jennifer say alleged ‘problems with the flat upstairs’ forced them out of their £1.4million property three times.
The couple claim they were also left with thousands of pounds worth of repair bills for their grade II listed home on the exclusive Lennox Gardens complex following Leda Sara’s gutting and renovating of her flat.
Ms Sara, a Goldman Sachs banker turned interior designer and estate agent for the mega-rich, bought her own apartment in 2014 for £1.6milllion.
However, repairs on the home – which she intended to rent out – allegedly caused ‘excessive heat loss and vermin… dust and rubbish deposits’ and a general ‘nuisance’.
Mr and Mrs Wagner also claim delays in certifying that alleged multiple leaks were fixed caused a sale of their flat to ‘fall through’ – costing them £60,000. They have demanded the ex-banker should pay the damages.
Ms Sara, 50, is defending the case, claiming she has no liability to the neighbouring couple and blaming the contractors who carried out the renovations for any issues.
She is also disputing the amounts claimed by Mr and Mrs Wagner.
Leda Sara, a Goldman Sachs banker turned interior designer and estate agent for the mega-rich, bought her own apartment in 2014 for £1.6milllion. She is pictured here outside the Mayors and City County Court
Swedish property firm boss Samuel Wagner and his wife Jennifer say alleged ‘problems with the flat upstairs’ forced them out of their £1.4million property three times. The couple are pictured outside court
Mayors and City County Court heard that Ms Sara, who now runs her own company focused on obtaining and managing luxury properties for ‘high net worth individuals,’ bought the apartment above Mr and Mrs Wagner’s home in 2014.
But she immediately ran into problems with her downstairs neighbours as she proceeded to strip out the furniture, kitchen, bathroom and partition walls, as well as a lowered ceiling.
The couple’s barrister Joseph Meethan told Judge Stephen Hellman ‘it is the claimants’ case that these initial works caused problems with excessive heat loss and vermin, as well as dust and rubbish deposits’.
He claimed that in 2019 further works to the flat forced the couple to move out of their home temporarily and that a leaking shower which made their ceiling collapse and a ‘flood’ in their home caused by a faulty sprinkler system in the flat above led them to move out two more times over the following year.
In 2020, the couple decided to move home and leave their neighbour troubles behind, but had a sale of the apartment collapse in 2022.
This cost them over £60,000 in extra second-home stamp duty as they were then unable to sell it within the three year limit after buying the other property.
The pair now blame the loss of the sale on Ms Sara’s alleged failure to provide them with evidence that the leaks had been remedied within the required timeframe, the barrister said.
He told the judge: ‘A series of leaks… affected Flat 4.
The townhouse in Lennox Gardens Knightsbridge where Samuel Wagner and his wife Jennifer and upstairs neighbour Leda Sara owned flats is pictured
‘On 18 August 2019, a damp patch formed on the ceiling of Flat 4.
‘This was caused by a leak from a shower in Flat 5… the ceiling of Flat 4 collapsed and the claimants moved out from 27 September 2019 until 4 November 2019.
‘Further leaks occurred in October 2021, July 2022 and October 2022 into the communal area of the building, and a further leak on 1 August 2022 into the kitchen of Flat 4.
‘It was the defendant’s responsibility to ensure that the outcome of the works was of good quality. The persistent issues with leaks demonstrate that this was not done.
‘The claimants were made to leave their home three times as a result of the defendant’s poor choice of contractors and lack of care for neighbours. She should be liable in damages for this.’
Faisel Sadiq, for Ms Sara, denied that she is liable to pay anything.
He told the judge: ‘The claimants have at all material times been aware that the works were carried out by independent contractors.
‘The defendant’s overarching position is that as a matter of law she is not liable for the negligence of, or for nuisance carried out by, an independent contractor.
‘The claimants cannot succeed in their claims against the defendant. As the case law makes clear, a landowner is not in the position of an insurer of all those independent contractors who carry out works on their land.
‘Generally speaking, a landowner will not be liable for nuisance created by third parties.
‘Where a nuisance is caused by a third party, the landowner will only be liable for the nuisance if she was negligent in remedying the nuisance once they were aware of the nuisance having arisen.
‘Additionally, a landowner may be liable for nuisance caused by her independent contractor if she could reasonably have foreseen that the work she had instructed the independent contractor to do was likely to result in a nuisance.
He went on to say the claim, ‘as pleaded’ is ‘wholly misconceived in that it seeks to render the defendant liable for the nuisance caused by, or negligence of, independent contractors or her tenant’.
‘As a matter of law the claim ought to be dismissed’, he concluded.
In relation to the claim for the lost stamp duty rebate ‘alleged to be due to the claimant’s inability to sell the property due to the defendant not proving that the leaks into Flat 4 had been remedied,’ the barrister said: ‘There is no pleaded claim that the defendant owed a duty to the claimants to provide such proof.
‘There is no sufficient evidence, beyond the claimants’ mere say so, that the sale of Flat 4 fell through because, or mainly because, of the lack of details provided by the defendant as respects the remedial works to Flat 5.’
The barrister added Ms Sara is also pursuing a claim against a contractor that carried out works on her flat during the disputed period seeking that they indemnify her for any losses incurred relating to works they carried out.
Lennox Gardens is one of the most exclusive garden squares in Knightsbridge, with houses on the square valued at up to £40 million.
The houses surrounding the gardens were built around 1886, with the 1.139 acre private communal gardens in the centre 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 would meet Diana, Princess of Wales, in his apartment during their romance from the summer of 1989, as later revealed in the notorious ‘Squidgygate’ tapes.
The hearing continues.
