A high-profile fashion director is facing accusations of “misrepresentations” and “deceit” in the sale of her £5.5m Notting Hill home, which a top barrister and his wife claim was secretly blighted by flooding, leaks, and mice.
Paula Reed, a former Harvey Nichols fashion director and well-known media personality, is being sued by commercial barrister Tom Grayson Ford and his wife Jessica, who purchased the six-storey property in December 2024.
Ms Reed, who has appeared on TV shows Project Catwalk and 10 Years Younger, denies any knowledge of alleged puddles in the basement or a mouse infestation.
The couple claim that soon after moving in, their basement was inundated following heavy rain, they were plagued by “mice, alive and dead” alongside “numerous droppings”, and had to contend with a leaking kitchen roof.
They claim they were promised the multimillion-pound house was “well-renovated and in ‘move in’ condition” during the sale process, suggesting the problems must have pre-existed and that Ms Reed must have been aware of them.
Ms Reed, however, vehemently denies any prior knowledge of the issues about which the multimillionaire couple are complaining.
In her defence, she suggests that the kitchen leak could have been self-inflicted by the Fords, who she claims removed a “bespoke green roof of ‘ferns and ivy’” that once covered that section of the house.
The fashion writer and consultant had sold the architect-designed property in Westbourne Grove as she transitioned from her city couture career, retreating to Cornwall to renovate an old vicarage – a process she documented in a column for Good Housekeeping magazine.
The Notting Hill house itself had been revamped decades earlier by her ex-husband, renowned architect Alfred Munkenbeck.
The legal battle sees the Fords seeking either the right to return the property or claim over £1m in damages, asserting that Ms Reed deliberately or “recklessly” failed to disclose the property’s alleged defects.
The seven-bedroom, three-bathroom, six-floor townhouse at the centre of the fight is set on Westbourne Grove in the heart of fashionable Notting Hill, close to Portobello Market.
Myriad famous faces have called the area home over the years, including Damon Albarn, Stella McCartney, Robbie Williams, Sir Elton John, David Cameron, Lindsay Lohan and Harry Styles.
Ms Reed, a formerGrazia magazine fashion editor, sold the property in December 2024, having already begun a new life in the country after moving to a £1.2m listed vicarage in Morwenstow, Cornwall.
The barrister and his wife, who have two young children, say in their claim documents that a month after buying the house and moving in they “returned from a week away over New Year to discover, on 5 January 2025, flooding…following heavy rain, with such flooding having plainly occurred previously.
“Such flooding has occurred on subsequent occasions during prolonged heavy rain,” they say, while also complaining about “other defects and issues”, which they say must have “existed as of the date of exchange and completion”.
They include the leaky kitchen and a mouse infestation, evidenced by “a significant number of rodent traps – both spring and poison – left in the property, together with numerous droppings in and around the kitchen and ground floor, and the presence of mice – alive and dead – together with gaps and crevices allowing entry.”
They accuse Ms Reed of making “a number of separate misrepresentations [which] demonstrates the willingness and intention of [Ms Reed] to conceal the truth and withhold matters that might negatively affect her sale of the property,” and insist they “would not have bought the property on the same terms, or at all, if the misrepresentations…had not been made.
“In response to pre-contractual enquiries…the defendant, being the seller of the property, made a series of misrepresentations in writing, which were intended to, and did, induce the claimants to proceed to enter a contract to purchase the property.
“The claimants were induced to pay a price of £5,500,000, with additional stamp duty of £571,250, plus other transaction costs, thereby causing loss to the claimants.
“The misrepresentations were each known by the defendant to be false or she had no belief in their truth, alternatively she was reckless as to the truth or falsity of the representations made, and the claimants are entitled to relief in tort and equity, including a declaration that they are entitled to elect to rescind the transaction and, if they so elect, associated relief, plus damages; alternatively, damages in lieu of rescission and/or in deceit,” they say.
But in her response, Ms Reed insists that “the statements she made in response to these pre-contractual enquiries were true and so there were no misrepresentations” or that “in the alternative, she…genuinely believed the representations to be true and that she had reasonable grounds for that belief.”
In her defence to the action, lodged with London’s High Court, Ms Reed’s barrister Faisel Sadiq says that, while she was living in the house, “there was no flooding at the property, and it did not suffer from any infestation of vermin.”
After 2020, the house had been rented out and she had received no complains or reports of flooding or vermin from the tenants, he says.
He points out that the basement room which the couple says is the epicentre of the “flooding” is a “pump room” for a former swimming pool in the garden, now converted to a pond, which was “not tanked and was, when constructed, not intended for habitation.”
He says that room “was always damp, with the level of damp increasing significantly following rainfall,” adding that “on a few occasions, following very heavy rainfall, a few small patches of water could be found on the floor.”
He adds that Ms Reed had used it as a storeroom and would deal with the damp atmosphere by placing “damp absorbers” on the floor.
Denying any attempt at concealing the damp by Ms Reed, he said: “The damp absorbers were present in the pump room when Mr Grayson Ford viewed the property on 23 September 2024. The damp absorbers were also present in the pump room when his building surveyor surveyed the property on 18 October 2023.”
Turning to the alleged leak in the kitchen roof which the couple say needs replacing, the barrister says: “On the roof of the extension was soil, ferns and ivy that Ms Reed had placed there in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
“The roof of the extension was impermeable and was designed by Alfred Munkenbeck with a view to Ms Reed being able to have soil and vegetation laid on top of it.
“Ms Reed notes that in recent photographs of the property sent to her by the claimants, the soil and vegetation appeared to have been entirely removed from the roof.
“The defendant has no knowledge of the steps the claimants, and/or their agents, took to ensure that no damage was done to the roof when the soil and vegetation were removed.”
The case reached court last week for a brief pre-trial hearing before High Court judge Master Katherine McQuail, at which Mr Grayson Ford and his wife were represented by barrister Gavin Bennison.
The judge directed that an expert building surveyor should be recruited to investigate the house and give evidence as to “what state the property was in on the date of completion and was there evidence of flooding”.
Unless it settles out of court, the case will return for trial at a later date.
