A wealthy City analyst is suing a couple who sold him a £1.9m riverside house for failing to inform him that the garden is regularly flooded by the River Thames.
Dr Adrian Howd is asking the High Court to order that the sale be rescinded or he be awarded damages to reflect the alleged loss in the property’s value due to the flooding.
Dr Howd and his wife claim that the garden of their Teddington home is flooded up to 80 times a year, with the majority of the garden sometimes under water.
Dr Howd claims that the previous owners, Bobby Console-Verma, and his wife Nicola, fraudulently misrepresented the truth before they sold the property.
Edwin Johnson QC, counsel for Dr Howd, said the Howds’ solicitor had asked the sellers before completion of the purchase, in October 2006, to confirm that “the property has never suffered from flooding”.
Console-Vermas’ lawyer responded by saying: “Our clients confirm that the property has never suffered from flooding during their 14-year occupation”.
The Howds say that that response was simply untrue and fraudulent.
However, Michael King, counsel for the Console-Vermas, submits that the question was “ambiguous” and that his clients had reasonably taken the view that “property” meant “bricks and mortar”, and not the garden.
The case continues.