Wedding venue owners sued for £1.2m after selling mansion riddled with dry rot
The owners of an upmarket wedding venue are being sued over claims they sold a £2 million mansion that they knew was riddled with dry rot.
Alastair and Carla Winsey are accused of scraping off fungus from timbers at their former home, The Old Vicarage in Grazeley, Berkshire, before selling it to Matthew Gore and his fiancee Kim Gozzett in 2018.
Mr Gore claims the couple deliberately concealed the dry rot, as well as serious structural defects which left him and his wife needing to demolish and rebuild part of their new home.
He is suing for around £1.2 million, which he says is the difference between the £2 million price tag and the true value of the eight-bed property once the defects had been uncovered.
He is also suing the surveyors who assessed the property before he agreed to buy it.
Mr and Mrs Winsey, proprietors of Hampshire wedding venue Silchester Farm, deny any wrongdoing. They said the claim was “opportunistic” and insisted they knew nothing about dry rot being present.
They also claim Mr Gore had fair warning about other potential issues before he signed the contract.
In papers lodged with London’s High Court, lawyers say The Old Vicarage, a period country property with eight bedrooms, was sold by the Winseys in July 2018 for £2 million. They had bought it for £1.12 million in 2014, before refurbishing it extensively.
The Winseys then turned their efforts to Silchester Farm, a six-bedroom 18th century farmhouse with outbuildings.
The “self-taught restorers and decorators” said they turned the farm into a “rural retreat and wedding venue” with a boating lake, guest accommodation and historic barns for weddings and celebrations. Couples pay up to £25,000 a day to hire the farm, with catering.
The Winseys now face allegations that they concealed the “hidden defects” in their former home, boosting its sale price by over £1 million.
‘Substantial structural damage’
Rupert Higgins, acting for Mr Gore, wrote in documents lodged with the High Court: “Following his purchase of the property, [Mr Gore] discovered that it was extensively affected by dry rot, which had pervaded the timber and brickwork structures of the ground floor and caused substantial structural damage.
“It was subsequently discovered that there was progressive movement in the roof and front wall of the former Coach House … requiring its demolition and rebuilding.
“The claimant has accordingly had to expend substantial sums in investigatory and remedial works to the above defects in order to render the property safely inhabitable.
“Prior to his purchase … the claimant instructed Haslams Surveyors Llp to conduct a full survey... His claim against Haslams is that they negligently failed to identify the presence of the dry rot and the structural issues…”
In court, Mr Higgins told Judge Anneli Howard KC that Mr Gore was bringing a “diminution in value claim”, adding that he was not backed by insurers but was making the claim himself.
“Two million pounds was paid for a property worth only £865,000,” Mr Higgins said. “The claimant is entitled to damages for deceit.”
Mark Warwick KC, acting for the Winseys, dismissed the claim against them as “opportunistic and misconceived” in his written defence and suggested the figure of £1.2 million was “extremely high”.
“By the time the claimant contracted to purchase the property, he knew that the Winseys had carried out extensive works…” he wrote. “The Winseys did not know that dry rot had been present … during the period of their ownership of the property.
“The claimant ...commissioned a full building survey from Haslams. The claimant’s decision to buy the property was based upon the report, and not upon any alleged representations by the Winseys.”
‘We warned the risk was high’
Benjamin Fowler, acting for Haslams Surveyors, told the judge his client had repeatedly advised Mr Gore to “carry out/commission further investigations into damp in areas of the ground floor of the property before exchange of contracts, which advice the claimant failed to follow”.
He added: “We warned the claimant that the risk of dry rot was high. It is alleged that the Winseys scraped visible evidence of dry rot fungus from timbers and then that subsequently returned.
“How much of that had returned by the time of my client’s inspection is to be the subject of evidence. There is a real question as to what [the surveyor] should and should not have seen, in circumstances where the other defendant has actually taken steps to hide what is visible.”
The case reached court in a pre-trial hearing before Judge Howard KC, during which the parties discussed issues relating to expert evidence.
Mr Fowler also set out the increasing cost of the case, telling the judge: “The parties have already spent £350,000 on this and half of that is from the claimant.”
The case is now set to return to court at a later date.