HT-2024-000285 - [2025] EWHC 2213 (TCC)

The Appellant and the Respondent, respectively the claimant and the defendant below, have been engaged in long-running litigation arising out of building works (“the Works”) performed by the Respondent at the Appellant’s property, 17, 17A, and 17B Fairhazel Gardens, London. No 17 was an existing end terrace house and 17A and 17B were vacant plots alongside it. The Appellant appeals with permission of Constable J on two grounds against the order of HH Judge Saggerson of 5^th August 2024. The order was the consequence of a judgment handed down on the same date. In the judgment the judge made findings as to the responsibilities for the problems which had arisen in the course of the Works and identified the financial consequences which flowed from those findings.

As a result of the Works there had been movement of the flank wall of no17. Ground 1 relates to the judge’s finding that the responsibility for this lay with the Appellant because the Respondent had been denied access to no 17. The Appellant contends that this finding was not open to the judge because it was contrary to the report of the single joint expert when that report was properly understood. The Appellant says that the judge had either misunderstood the report or had impermissibly departed from the opinion of the expert without good reason and/or without adequately identifying his reasoning.

The judge had sent out his judgment in draft in advance of handing it down and had invited submissions on costs and on matters of calculation. The Claimant had sent submissions to the correct email address by the required date. As a result of an oversight those submissions were not put before the judge before he had prepared a final draft, although they did reach him before he handed down that judgment. In ground 2 the Appellant says that there was procedural irregularity in that regard and in the steps which the judge took to address the matter when the submissions were drawn to his attention.

For the reasons I will set out below neither ground has been established and the appeal is dismissed.