Tower block builders attempt to get £3.7million authorized prices paid by couple who sued them for blocking their gentle and received

A retired couple who successfully sued developers over a 17-storey office tower that plunged their home into darkness now face a staggering £3.7million legal bill despite winning their case. 

Stephen and Jennifer Powell complained that the Arbor tower, part of the £2billion Bankside Yards development, ‘substantially’ reduced the natural light getting into their sixth-floor apartment in the designer block Bankside Lofts next door on London‘s South Bank.

Bankside Yards is eventually set to consist of eight towers, including ‘mega-structures’ 50 storeys high, with Arbor being the first building completed in September 2021.

But the project ran into trouble when the Powells and their seventh-floor neighbour Kevin Cooper sued, seeking an injunction to protect their rights of light and threatening the tower, which cost nearly £35million to build, with potentially being torn down.

Mr Justice Fancourt, ruling on the case at the High Court, said that the couple’s flat was ‘substantially affected’ by their light being cut off and ordered the co-developer of the site, Ludgate House Ltd, to pay the Powells £500,000 in damages, plus £350,000 to Mr Cooper.

But the householders are now facing a bid to make them pay the massive £3.7million legal costs of the case due to the judge having rejected their bid for an injunction requiring the tower to be demolished.

During the trial of the case, the court heard that the Powells have lived in their sixth floor flat in the iconic yellow ochre Bankside Lofts building on the south bank of the river for over 20 years, having moved in 2002, whilst property finance professional Mr Cooper bought his seventh-floor flat in 2021.

Their barrister Tim Calland told Mr Justice Fancourt: ‘The Bankside Yards development will consist of eight towers, the tallest of which stretches to 50 storeys in height. The marketing material for Arbor describes it as a mega-structure and boasts of exceptional natural light.

‘The claimants maintain that this will have been achieved – wrongfully – at the expense of their light.

‘Light is not an unnecessary ‘add on’ to a dwelling. Light does not just give pleasure, but provides the very benefits of health, wellbeing and productivity which the defendants are using to advertise the development.

‘That is the reason the claimants have brought their claims.’

Mr Justice Fancourt went on to award damages to the Powells and Mr Cooper, saying that parts of the two flats had been left with levels of light ‘insufficient for the ordinary use and enjoyment of those rooms.’

But he refused the neighbours an injunction requiring Arbor to be altered or torn down, saying that over £200million would be wasted in demolishing and rebuilding the tower, with massive associated ‘environmental damage’.

That decision means that the Powells and Mr Cooper ought to now pay the massive costs of the case, John Mcghee KC, for the developer argued in a fresh hearing this week.

He told the judge: ‘The claimants should be ordered to pay the defendant’s costs of the claims because it was the overall successful party, having successfully resisted the claimants’ claim for injunctive relief.

‘These claims were not about monetary compensation, but rather about whether the claimants could obtain an order requiring the defendant to modify its development so that the claimants would retain their light.

‘The claimants did not achieve what was the ‘the purpose of their claims’, which was to obtain injunctive relief. Those claims were dismissed.

‘So far as the defendant was concerned too, the possibility of injunctive relief was its real concern in these proceedings. If injunctive relief was granted, the defendant would have been required to demolish part of Arbor at a cost of £15-20 million and incur a further £225 million in rebuilding.

‘It is true that the claimants obtained an order for damages and interest amounting to £397,484.64, in the case of Mr Cooper, and £567,835.21, in the case of the Powells. But those sums, particularly as to damages, were entirely aligned with the sums offered by the defendant and only a small fraction of the sum of £3.37 million sought by Mr Cooper and £3 million sought by the Powells.

‘These monetary claims were ridiculously over-inflated, amounting to more than three times the value of their respective flats.

‘In real life, the defendant is the winner in this litigation in that it can maintain and continue with its development unhampered by the claimants’ claims.

‘The claimants are in reality the losers, having failed to achieve what was their stated sole purpose of bringing these claims in the first place.

‘For these reasons, the court is invited to determine that the defendant was the successful party and accordingly that the claimants should pay the defendant’s costs.’

The barrister added that the householders should pay 75% of the developer’s costs if the judge found against his plea for them to foot the whole bill.

Tim Calland, for the neighbours, however disagreed, telling the judge: ‘Undoubtedly, the claimants are the successful party in the litigation: the court awarded them substantial sums in damages which, in the case of the Powells, exceeded the largest sum ever before awarded in a reported rights-of-light case and, in the case of Mr Cooper, matched it.

‘The defendant may feel relief that an injunction was not ordered, but that does not make it the successful party. Its defence of the claim failed.

‘Before this litigation, the defendant was only willing to offer the claimants book-value settlements. They had to make these claims, which have been exceptionally hard-fought and expensive, and to see them through to trial to establish and vindicate their rights.

‘On any view, they have succeeded: in accordance with the general rule, the claimants should be awarded their costs.’

The developers are also arguing that Mr Cooper failed to beat an offer they made to settle his claim before trial, but his lawyers are arguing that the offer was invalid in relation to cost consequences, as it included matters that went beyond those being fought over in the litigation.

In refusing the injunction to demolish the tower in his judgment last year, the judge had said: ‘The claimants say that an injunction is the right remedy to grant because the defendant has deliberately proceeded with its development in the face of the claimants’ rights, knowing that there was probably an infringement, and taking the chance that it would be able to buy off the claimants and all those in an equivalent position.

‘The claimants are people who say that they have a particular and strong attraction to the benefits of natural light directly from the sky, and are unwilling to see that light taken away from them as a fait accompli.

‘The position was, I am sure, exacerbated by…advertising the new development as having ‘exceptional levels of natural light’ that promote productivity and wellbeing, which Mr Cooper pointed out amounted to the developer helping itself to his light and offering a modest payment while intending to sell it to others for a high price.’

But he added: ‘There are strong arguments, in modern times, why over £200 million of development costs should not be wasted. There would also be substantial harm done by a further, complex demolition contract and considerable environmental damage as a result.

‘Apart from the financial interest of the developer, to which an order for demolition could be said to be oppressive in comparison with the degree of harm done to the claimants, there is a significant public interest that needs to be taken into account.’

The ruling on costs will now be given at a later date.