A TOP fashion director is locked in a row with a couple who bought her £5million house that was infested by mice and blighted by floods.
Former Harvey Nichols fashion director Paula Reed denies she used “deceit” to sell a top barrister and his wife her £5.5m house.
Paula Reed’s £5.5million Notting Hill houseCredit: Champion News Service
Ms Reed sold the property in December 2024Credit: Zac Frackelton – The Times
She claims knew nothing about alleged puddles in the basement or a mouse infestation at her six-storey architect-designed home.
The house – near the famous Portobello Market – was bought by top commercial barrister Tom Grayson Ford and his wife Jessica in December 2024.
The former Grazia fashion editor, 64, sold her glam pad as she stepped back from her city career and retreated to to renovate an old vicarage.
She documented the process in a column for Good Housekeeping magazine.
Ms Reed – who has appeared on TV shows Project Catwalk and 10 Years Younger – is now locked in a court fight with lawyer Mr Grayson Ford and his wife.
They are suing for the right to hand the house back or claim over £1m in damages.
The couple claim Ms Reed deliberately or “recklessly” failed to reveal issues with the property.
It had been revamped decades earlier by her ex-husband, top architect Alfred Munkenbeck.
The couple say that soon after they moved, in their basement flooded, they were plagued by “mice, alive and dead” plus “numerous droppings,” as well as having to deal with a leaky kitchen roof.
They allege that they were promised during the sale process that the multimillion-pound house was “well-renovated and in ‘move in’ condition”.
The couple claim Ms Reed deliberately or ‘recklessly’ failed to reveal issues with the propertyCredit: Champion News Service
Ms Reed is a former Grazia fashion editorCredit: Champion News Service
The multimillionaire couple say that the problems they say they have encountered must have already existed and that the fashionista must have known about them.
But Ms Reed says they could have caused the kitchen leak themselves by ripping out a bespoke green roof of “ferns and ivy,” which had covered that part of the house.
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.
Numerous famous faces have called the area home over the years, including , Stella McCartney, , Sir , , and .
Ms Reed 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.
In her defence to the action, lodged with London’s High Court, Ms Reed’s barrister said “there was no flooding at the property, and it did not suffer from any infestation of vermin” when she lived there.
After 2020, the house was rented out and she had received no complains or reports of flooding or vermin from the tenants, he says.
He pointed out that the basement room which the couple says is the epicentre of the “flooding” is a “pump room” for a former pool in the garden, now converted to a pond.
He said it was “not intended for habitation”.
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.
The house – near the famous Portobello Market – was bought by top commercial barrister Tom Grayson Ford and his wife Jessica in December 2024Credit: Champion News Service
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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