Former heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis is facing the second round in his fight to force the sale of his ex-manager’s home.
The Court of Appeal has allowed trustees representing an estate with an alleged legal interest in the property to challenge a High Court ruling that the property belongs to Lewis’ former promoter Panos Eliades.
At the High Court in April 2005, Peter Smith J granted Lewis a charging order over the £2m house at Beech Hill, Enfield, in order to cover a £3.1m debt owed to him by Eliades.
Although Eliades claimed that the house had been sold to a relative ─ the now deceased Aristos Kaissides ─ for £1.15m in 1989, the judge ruled that he was the beneficial owner and had been holding the property on trust for Kaissides.
However, the trustees of Kaissides’ estate, Ntinos Karis and Menelaos Menelaou, have been granted permission to challenge that decision in a one-day Court of Appeal hearing to take place later this year. Eliades has been given permission to join the appeal, provided that he applies to the appeal court in writing.
Carnwath LJ said that he had “great sympathy” for the judge, who had had to “deal with an extraordinary story with an extraordinary lack of evidence by way of corroboration”.
However, he said that it was “realistically arguable” that the judge had given insufficient weight to arguments by the trustees that the property had legitimately been transferred to Kaissides.
Lewis v Eliades and others Court of Appeal (Carnwath and Neuberger LJJ) 24 May 2005.
References: EGi Legal News 24/05/05
