Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Westbrook given leave to appeal for Pimlico's Dolphin Square freehold

04 Oct 2011, 3:58 pm

Developer Westbrook has been given permission to launch an appeal in its bid to take control of Dolphin Square in Pimlico, it has been reported.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr Justice Arnold granted Westbrook permission to appeal his High Court ruling that the claim to use enfranchisement laws in relation to the 1,250-flat block "amounts to an abuse of process" and must be "struck out".

Westbrook has owned the leasehold to Dolphin Square since paying £176.5 million for it in 2004 and has been aiming to buy the freehold since 2007. Two years ago the company bought a claim but a week before the trial it pulled out, claiming it was because of "unfavourable market conditions".

In a second attempt, the company served a new notice in 2010, valuing the freehold at £111.6m – a £13.8m increase on the 2007 valuation. Westbrook is seeking to use enfranchisement laws to buy the freehold, using Jersey-listed companies which each own two of the flats.

Friends Provident, which currently owns the freehold, has argued that the claim should be struck out given that Westbrook already abandoned its earlier claim.

Giving his judgment last month, Mr Justice Arnold said that although enfranchisement laws allow the bringing of successive claims for enfranchisement, they do not allow the bringing of successive claims to be entitled to exercise the right to collective enfranchisement.

"I recognise that it is a strong thing to prevent a party from obtaining the court's determination of what is accepted to be a reasonably arguable claim. However, Westbrook had a full opportunity to obtain the court's determination in the previous proceedings," he said.

"By bringing the previous claim, Westbrook caused Friends Provident and the courts to expend time and resources to deal with the claim. It chose to discontinue that claim shortly before trial," said the ruling. "In my view, it both could and should have pursued that claim to trial to establish the entitlement of special purpose vehicles to exercise the right of collective enfranchisement if it wanted to maintain that entitlement."

The judge has granted Westbrook permission to appeal the decision because the case raised an "issue of principle" that should be determined by the Court of Appeal.