{"id":170736,"date":"2021-08-28T09:42:18","date_gmt":"2021-08-28T09:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/?p=170736"},"modified":"2021-08-30T10:00:37","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T10:00:37","slug":"law-chiefs-wild-pond-mired-freeholder-in-years-of-litigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/law-chiefs-wild-pond-mired-freeholder-in-years-of-litigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Law chief\u2019s wild pond mired freeholder in years of litigation"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n \u00a9 Jonathan Goldberg\/Shutterstock<\/span>
\n Lucy Scott-Moncrieff – Jonathan Goldberg\/Shutterstock
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As a human rights lawyer and former commissioner for standards at the House of Lords, Lucy Scott-Moncrieff no doubt will have the highest moral integrity.<\/p>\n

It was therefore a surprise when some peers recently accused her of using \u201cbullying\u201d letters to persuade them to attend a course designed to combat bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment.<\/p>\n

But, The Telegraph can reveal Ms Scott-Moncrieff has herself been locked in a lengthy and bitter legal battle with the freeholder at her Victorian home in northwest London after she built a large wild swimming pond.<\/p>\n

Christine Guignabaudet, 68, owns the freehold for one of two adjoining garden flats Ms Scott Moncrieff, 67, bought more than 20 year ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She has claimed she felt \u201cbullied\u201d during the protracted dispute played out in the high court and Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n

In 1998, Ms Scott-Moncrieff bought the ground floor flat of a semi-detached house. Two years later she purchased the next door flat and converted the two properties with their gardens into a single family home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all started when she removed the boundary fence between the two gardens, meaning I had to give her a retrospective license approving it,\u201d Ms Guignabaudet, a historian, said.<\/p>\n

In 2006, Ms Scott-Moncrieff obtained planning permission to build a \u201cnatural swimming pool\u201d spanning a large part of both gardens. Ms Guignabaudet obtained an injunction to stop the works while she took the case to the high court believing it contravened the lease, and so\u00a0consent was needed.<\/p>\n

But in 2008, the high court rejected the freeholder\u2019s claim, in part because the judge concluded the pond was not an \u201calteration in the construction of the demised premises\u201d and so did not breach the lease.<\/p>\n

And so, the swimming pond was created. It later featured in a local newspaper where its bulrushes, watercress, mint and marsh marigolds received high praise.<\/p>\n

Ms Guignabaudet took the case to the Court of Appeal, where three judges concluded a 27-square-metre \u201cswimming area\u201d that required 34 cubic metres of soil to be removed, much of it from the boundary fence area, did in fact represent a garden \u201cwhose arrangements have been altered within the meaning of this covenant [the lease].\u201d<\/p>\n

They noted how even Ms Scott-Moncrieff\u2019s barrister admitted \u201cquite a bit of earth\u201d needed shifting, something the judges estimated to be \u201cthree or four large lorry loads\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s been years of hell and I felt bullied,\u201d Ms Guignabaudet said. \u201cIt has cost so much money in legal fees. We obviously needed solicitors, an area where Ms Scott-Moncrieff has a professional advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Scott-Moncrieff said she felt the matter was now in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The one-time president of the Law Society who runs her own law firm said: \u201cThe Court of Appeal decision was in 2009, and all matters have been resolved for many years. The pond has been in use since then, with no challenge from the freeholder.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that litigation regarding leases and freehold is \u201ccommonplace\u201d and vehemently rejected any suggestion her \u201cactions or inactions\u201d amounted to bullying, adding how in each case \u201cthe threat of litigation came from Ms Guignabaudet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2016, she was appointed the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lord Heseltine, the former deputy prime minister, recently wrote how he was one of 60 peers who received a letter from Ms Moncrieff-Scott warning he had failed to sign up for Value Everyone training, so was in breach of the House\u2019s code of conduct and could have privileges withdrawn.<\/p>\n

He described the letter as \u201chectoring\u201d, adding: \u201cI was being bullied into taking an anti-bullying course.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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