Oligarch’s daughter buys £32.5m mansion, then sues seller over ’millions of moths’
Iya Patarkatsishvili and husband Dr Yevhen Hunyak are suing the previous owner of their luxury £32.5million London mansion after alleging he did not disclose a moth infestation
A Russian oligarch’s daughter who claims she was tricked into buying a moth-infested mansion has been accused of causing the plague of mice and insects herself.
Iya Patarkatsishvili and husband Dr Yevhen Hunyak are suing the previous owner of their luxury London home for not telling them about moths, which they say ruin their clothes and spoil their wine, and have forced them to install 400 traps around their house. They are claiming for money back plus damages on the £32.5 million purchase of enormous Horbury Villa property in Notting Hill, claiming that they would have to "knock down every wall in the property" to get rid of the infestation.
But lawyers for seller William Woodward-Fisher are fighting the High Court claim - and deny that moths can be categorised as "vermin" which have to be disclosed prior to sale.
John McGhee KC, representing the couple, told Mr Justice Fancourt that the couple now want to hand the house back and allow Mr Woodward-Fisher to sell it to help raise funds to pay the damages they are claiming. But in his closing speech at the end of the trial, Jonathan Seitler KC, for Mr Woodward-Fisher, said it would be "impossible" for him to accept the house back, and accused the couple of having "substantially degraded" their "super-prime property" since they bought it in 2019 through "neglect".
He claimed they had "introduced a vermin infestation into the property in the form of mice and rodents," as well as issues with "flies and fly larvae" linked to Dr Hunyak’s habit of keeping "a very large selection of fruit" in his bedroom. The barrister also claimed "rising damp, penetrating damp, leaks to the roof and terrace, and worn and soiled finishes and carpets, among other issues" had been caused since the sale.
The court had earlier heard that Mr Woodward-Fisher, 68, who formerly competed for Great Britain as a rower, bought the site in 2011 and lived there with 64-year-old interior designer wife Kerry. The house was extended and radically remodelled by Mr Woodward-Fisher to about 11,000 square feet, before it was sold on to Dr Hunyak, 50, and Ms Patarkatsishvili, 41, in 2019.
Dr Hunyak is a paediatric dentist who practices 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. Before the purchase, they or their staff visited the mansion - which has seven bathrooms, a swimming pool, spa, cinema and gym in a newly formed double basement - on at least 11 separate occasions, the court was told.
Despite their careful inspection, the couple say they were dismayed when they were hit with what one insect specialist called "an infestation of extreme proportions" which amounted to "millions of moths". They claim moths would land on their toothbrushes, left £50,000 worth of clothes in tatters and that they sometimes have to throw away wine after finding dead moths floating in glasses. They claim Mr Woodward-Fisher was guilty of negligence or “fraudulent misrepresentation” in not revealing previous moth issues when they asked pre-purchase about any problems with “vermin.”
Mr Woodward-Fisher strongly denies doing anything wrong, and claims he told his solicitor that the house had previously had moths, but was told they do not qualify as vermin. He also said that despite his wife, Kerry, having been bothered by clothes moths in the past, it was not enough to concern him and had been solved by pest controllers by July 2018.
Mr McGhee, closing his case, told the judge that the mansion could be put on the market by Mr Woodward-Fisher at a "discount" £25m if the oligarch’s daughter and her husband win their court fight, with him needing to dip into into his £15m fortune to make up the rest of the £36m they are claiming, he said. The couple would alternatively be happy to give Mr Woodward-Fisher time to do works to the house to remedy the alleged moth issue and get a better price, he add. He said: "I accept that the effect of the order is going to have devastating consequences and is going to be a large part of Mr Woodward-Fisher’s existing assets, although it is still going to leave him with a number of millions of pounds. But the court has to take a step back and say this is the consequence of making deliberate dishonest representations in formal documents in relation to a substantial property."
Mr Seitler told the judge that Mr Woodward-Fisher insists the moths are not his fault, saying: "Many households across the UK will house a few clothes moths as they are readily transferred from house to house. It is just as likely that the cause of any remaining moth issue is clothing / furniture / food, rather than ‘hidden pockets’ of insulation. The presence of moths from sources unrelated to the insulation is far from unusual...no one can say for certain that the true source of the moths is not the claimants’ own fabrics."
And claiming it was "impossible" for Mr Woodward-Fisher to take the house back, he claimed that it has been degraded and subject to other infestations since it was sold. He told the judge that pest controllers had asked the couple to “maintain hygiene levels” in order to get rid of moths and rodents.
He added: "The presence of moths from sources unrelated to the insulation is far from unusual...no one can say for certain that the true source of the moths is not the claimants’ own fabrics."
The judge has now reserved his decision in the case to be given at a later date.
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