I paid £2.5million for a flat but I can’t live there due to mystery popping noise… I’m suing the developer for £1million
A BUSINESSMAN who splashed out £2.5m for a luxury flat is suing after a mystery popping noise made it “uninhabitable”.
Nazirali Tejani is seeking more than £1m in damages over the “unbearable” sound which he says makes it impossible to sleep.
The 70-year-old said his new-build luxury pad in London’s West End is haunted by a “bubble wrap popping” sound that runs through the entire flat.
Despite extensive work, the source of the noise remains a mystery – prompting Mr Tejani to take the issue to court.
The tycoon is also alleging the flat was worth £815,000 less than what he paid.
The case reached the High Court last week, where the businessman’s son claimed he and his father were “treated like guinea pigs” because their complaints were not taken seriously.
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Mr Tejani’s downstairs neighbour backed up his claim that the noise made his flat “uninhabitable” – as he described it as sounding like a “frictional tension between two surfaces”.
Mr Tejani, who first complained about the noise in 2016, is claiming he has suffered considerable losses on the flat through not being able to live there, sell it or rent it out.
The pharmaceutical and property tycoon is suing the freeholder Fitzroy Place Residential Ltd and developer 2-10 Mortimer Street GP Ltd over the dispute.
Both companies are denying liability, disputing there were any defects in the building’s construction or design.
They are also insisting Mr Tejani has rejected a £2.8m offer on the apartment, which would have netted him a handsome £300,000 profit.
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Mr Tejani’s lawyers described the noise in court documents as a “clicking or popping noise”, although others in the same building have compared it to an insidious “creaking”.
At the start of the High Court trial defence barrister, Gary Blaker KC, claimed his clients had taken “all reasonable steps” to investigate the noise and pin down the source of the problem.
He suggested that Mr Tejani and his son Amirul had rejected the offer to sell out of “greed” because they were holding out for a better offer.
But Amirul, a Leicester-based businessman, said his family had felt a “moral obligation” not to sell the flat until the enigma of the noise was cleared up, adding the landlords “should have taken the situation seriously from the offset”.
Amirul said that even an offer of £4m would have been rejected on moral grounds as they “didn’t want a future occupier to have this issue and there are ethics involved here.”
“I would not expect someone to inherit this property in its current form,” said Amirul, a comment which the defence barrister dismissed as “nonsense”.
Amirul also disputed defence claims that he still periodically uses the plush central London flat, insisting that he primarily only uses it for its convenient parking space when he visits London.
“Clearly uninhabitable”
The Tejanis’ downstairs neighbour, James Thornton, told the court his own tenants had complained about a “creaking” sound in his flat.
When he himself was living there, he found the noise “moderate” – but added that the noise was far worse when he visited the Tejanis’ flat, making it “clearly uninhabitable in normal terms.”
Mr Tejani’s lawyers believe the noise is caused by “defects in the design and / or construction of the façade of the building”.
In court documents his KC, Timothy Dutton, said: “The timing of the noise is intermittent and the noise level varies depending on the time of the year and time of the day.
“The noise occurs both day and night. It is loud enough to wake the claimant and his wife when sleeping.
“The noise cannot be suppressed or masked and can be heard even if a television or radio is playing in the apartment and irrespective of whether internal doors are closed.”
In September 2018, Mr Tejani wrote in an email: “The reason I keep nagging at this matter is because the noise is unbearable and I cannot stay in the flat any longer due to it.”
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The businessman is arguing that the developer is in breach of its contract after failing to fix the problem, and that both developer and freeholder have a duty to resolve it.
He says he also lost out after spending more than £110,000 improving and furnishing the flat, and up to another £300,000 which he believes he could have made in selling it on soon after it was built.
