The residents of Britain’s most expensive apartment block face a ten-year refurbishment despite winning a £35 million court case against the building’s main contractor.
The celebrity and billionaire owners of One Hyde Park paid more than £100 million for the luxury flats in Knightbridge, overlooking the Royal Park and Harrod’s.
However, defective pipework forced them into a ten-year legal battle against a subsidiary of Laing O’Rourke, one of the country’s largest construction groups, to try to stop leaks in their flats.
Kylie Minogue lived at One Hyde Park
HELLE ARENSBAK/RITZAU SCANPIX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Experts who were called to give evidence in the case expect that it will take more than a decade for the issues to be fully resolved, given the “highly complex” works required in an occupied building.
Residents will have to move out while flats on their floor are being worked on as the ceilings need to be taken down to complete the repairs.
It means they will have to forego their access to their 21-metre ozone swimming pool, squash court and golf simulator, as well as their cinema, spa and gyms.
The court also heard the residents’ concerns about having to place artwork and furniture, collectively worth millions, into storage.
Amongst those to have owned a flat in the block are Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man, Nick Candy, the billionaire Reform donor who developed One Hyde Park with his brother, Christian, and Noel McKee, founder of Webuyanycar.com. Kylie Minogue was a resident, but moved out and sold up after the pandemic.
Nick Candy, the treasurer of Reform UK, developed One Hyde Park with his brother Christian. Construction took four years
PHILIP TOSCANO/PA
The block also boasts more than 15 types of specialty stone and a heating system that uses geothermal boreholes 140 metres deep.
None of these, however, could prevent building issues better known to residents of lesser flats: corroded pipes and other issues with the plumbing.
In its ruling, the High Court ordered Laing O’Rourke Construction South to pay a total of £35.1 million to replace the pipes and stop the leaks.
However, it remains unclear if the claimants will ever see the money awarded to them because Laing O’Rourke wound down the subsidiary a week before the trial in February 2025. It did not attend the proceedings, nor was it represented.
Mrs Justice Jefford, in her judgment, said the construction company had “decided to pull the plug on the defendant rather than honour its contractual obligations”. Lawyers representing the One Hyde Park residents called the move “commercially amoral”, which Mrs Justice Jefford said she agreed with.
Corrosion in the chilled water pipework was first discovered in 2014, only three years after the 84-flat project was completed.
The Candy brothers teamed up with Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, known as HBJ, then Qatar’s foreign minister and one of the Gulf state’s richest men, to develop the project.
Construction, overseen by Laing O’Rourke, took four years, with more than 2,500 workers on site every day. Nick Candy’s 18,000 sq ft penthouse, with an asking price of £175 million, has been on the market for nearly five years.
There was ten years of back-and-forth between the residents and Laing O’Rourke while they tried to agree on how to fix the pipework. Laing O’Rourke made several offers, but the residents felt the terms were “unacceptable”.
A source with knowledge of the discussions suggested that one of the sticking points was around the clearing of the apartments while works were undertaken. Residents were reluctant to place their artwork and furniture into temporary storage, while Laing O’Rourke did not want to be held responsible if anything got damaged during the repairs.
The residents called Monday’s High Court ruling a “decisive victory”, adding: “We are committed to ensuring Laing O’Rourke is held fully accountable and makes full and fair payment for the construction defects it has been found responsible for.”
A spokesman for Laing O’Rourke said in a statement: “We are aware that the defendant, Laing O’Rourke Construction South, spent almost a decade trying to find an amicable resolution to the issue with One Hyde Park’s management company, initiating extensive rounds of negotiations and making multiple offers of compensation, including an offer to undertake remedial work for free.”