High Court: Freezing order continued
A law firm that paid out £750,000 to a buyer client over an error on a property transaction has taken assignment of its claim against the seller.
Cheltenham firm BPE Solicitors has obtained a freezing injunction against four properties owned by Raj Kumar Ram to stop him dissipating his assets ahead of the trial of its £1.3m claim.
His Honour Judge Auerbach, sitting as a High Court judge, found that Mr Ram’s efforts to give away three of the properties to family members was because of the action, rather than putting his affairs in order ahead of a serious operation.
BPE acted for More Homes Bromley Ltd (MHB) on the £1.6m purchase of a property in Kent known as Cobb House.
Several months after completion in 2019, it emerged that the property was subject to an undisclosed enforcement notice which the seller had been appealing. BPE took assigned of MHB’s claim for fraudulent, or alternatively negligent, misrepresentation last year.
There is further claim pursuant to the Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978 over the £750,000 BPE has paid MHB in relation to the matter.
BPE subsequently sold the property at auction for £463,750. Netting off the auction price, it claims loss on the purchase and subsequent sale of £1,136,250, loss of rent of a little more than £195,000 and other losses.
It seeks to recoup the full amount through either the principal claim and/or the contribution claim. Mr Ram has not yet put in his defence.
In deciding to continue a freezing order obtained without notice earlier this year, HHJ Auerbach said he was satisfied that there was a serious issue to be tried and that, if he did not maintain the order, there was a risk of “unjustified dissipation” of the properties.
There was “clear and undisputed evidence” that Mr Ram had recently sought to divest himself of interest in three properties for no consideration.
He claimed that this was something he had been planning to do for some years and was now doing it in anticipation of potentially life-threatening surgery.
But on the evidence, HHJ Auerbach said the timing was more about the prospect of the claim.
The judge also ordered Mr Ram to pay costs of £60,000, reduced from £71,000 as “more efficient use of the overall resources” of the three counsel instructed “could and should have been made”.
