A university professor is facing a £180,000 court bill after his legal challenge against a neighbour, whom he accused of rendering his £680,000 London apartment “unsellable”, ended in defeat.Professor Daslav Brkic initiated legal action against Douglas Palin, a wine retailer and freeholder of their shared Victorian property in Finsbury Park, north London. Prof Brkic claimed that Mr Palin’s “rude, overbearing, confrontational and uncooperative” demeanour and “feudal” attitude had deterred potential buyers from his apartment.The dispute escalated in 2023 when an offer on Prof Brkic’s flat was withdrawn. He alleged that this occurred after Mr Palin disclosed various neighbourly disagreements to the prospective buyer, including a past row over wooden floors and a question regarding whether the academic's bathroom extension “encroached” on Mr Palin's property.Prof Brkic contended that Mr Palin, in his capacity as freeholder, exhibited an “extraordinarily hierarchical, gloating and somewhat feudal approach”, demanding “overly regular inspections” and generally acting “unreasonably”. He sought £80,000 in damages, arguing that these disclosures were unnecessary as most issues had been resolved, with the bathroom matter later clarified as a “mistake” on official plans.Douglas Palin was accused of being overbearing and 'feudal' in his interactions with his neighbour (Champion News)However, following a week-long trial, Judge Nigel Gerald ruled in favour of Mr Palin. The judge concluded that Mr Palin had acted appropriately in informing prospective buyers of both historical and ongoing factual issues concerning the property, leaving Prof Brkic to face a £180,000 court bill.“It is very important for a prospective purchaser to know what they're buying, what they're letting themselves in for”, he said, adding he could see no reason why Prof Brkic could not now market and sell his flat, since the most serious issues were resolved officially by agreement nearly two years ago.He went on to order the academic who teaches business studies at Milan University, and his wife, Paola Salmoria, to pay Mr Palin's £45,000 legal bills, on top of their own of around £135,000.The judge made no findings about the behaviour of any of the parties and said he did not doubt that the concerns Mr Palin flagged up with the potential buyer were genuine and “honest”.Central London County Court heard Mr Palin, who works in wine retail, is the freeholder of the Victorian conversion at the heart of the row, in Alexandra Grove, Finsbury Park.He lives in an upper floor flat there, with the ground floor and garden apartment sold by a previous tenant to Prof Brkic and his wife in 2013.After the purchase, the couple began an extensive refurbishment of the flat, which ended up as a home for their daughter and son-in-law, although they both visited regularly.But the work resulted in a series of disputes, with Prof Brkic telling the judge from the witness box that Mr Palin had taken an “extraordinarily hierarchical, gloating and somewhat feudal approach” to his position as freeholder.He had requested overly regular inspections of the flat and proved to be “unreasonable and antagonistic”, causing them immense stress, he said.Disagreements with Mr Palin included his taking them to a tribunal in 2021 for a breach of their lease in tearing up carpets, the court heard.The tribunal found in favour of Mr Palin in an “open and shut” case, with the couple going on to have the flat re-carpeted to prevent noise nuisance.The house in Alexandra Grove, Finsbury Park, at the centre of the dispute between Prof Daslav Brkic and Douglas Palin (Champion News)Another tribunal hearing took place after Prof Brkic objected to repeated “irritating” inspections, with Mr Palin losing on that occasion, the judge said.Other complaints included their having torn out Victorian burglar bars from the windows and replaced timber sash windows with UPVC, and about the way their electricity cables were attached to a fuse box in a communal area.Floor joists had also been cut into without permission to make pipe conduits, while Mr Palin also criticised the couple for an unsealed door, which he said allowed “foul” cooking odours to permeate the common parts of the building.In 2023, the couple decided to sell and it was during that process that problems with the leasehold plan emerged, seemingly putting their bathroom on Mr Palin's property.One potential purchase for £680,000 fell through in early 2023, with another buyer pulling out in August after offering about £640,000.Blaming Mr Palin for the collapsed second sale, Prof Brkic and his wife sued, claiming that disclosures made by Mr Palin in a Leasehold Property Enquiries (LPE1) form had scared the buyers off.Their barrister, Tom Morris, told Judge Gerald that, “to their horror”, Mr Palin had put forward a “litany of complaints” in the document.It included mention of the resolved carpet argument, historic disagreements about the windows and burglar bars, and the bathroom issue, which had been a “mistake” on a plan.Arguing that the answers in the form were a breach of the couple's right to “quiet enjoyment” of the property as they cannot now sell their flat other than to an investor at a knockdown auction price, Mr Morris said Mr Palin had been wrong to mention the issues, given most had been resolved.However, giving evidence, despite agreeing that some of the complaints were resolved before he filled in the document, Mr Palin insisted the issues were genuinely of concern to him.Replacing historic sash windows in a Victorian property with UPVC could have affected the value of the property as a whole, he told the judge.“To have one floor that has UPVV windows is not a good look for the building,” he said. “It's been an ongoing dispute between the parties as to whether permission was given or not.”His barrister, Andrew Skelly, added that Mr Palin had been “entitled, and indeed prudent, to make the disclosures complained of”.Giving judgment, Judge Gerald said Mr Palin had been acting within his rights by saying what he did in the questionnaire.“All the LPE does is set out essentially matters of historical fact,” he said.“There is no suggestion he acted dishonestly or in bad faith, or that in any material respect any of the material provided was misleading.“I simply cannot understand how a landlord providing essentially factual information, primarily requested by a prospective purchaser, can be a breach of covenant, how it can in any way interfere with a sale.”He also rejected Prof Brkic's case that the contents of the form had resulted in his buyer pulling out, saying there was “no sufficient evidence” to suggest that it was the “material or sole cause”.He said the potential purchasers appeared to have “jumped the gun” and pulled out before even getting Mr Palin's further comments on the issues.Prof Brkic and his wife had also themselves failed to mention issues in property and leasehold information documents, known as TA6 and TA7 forms, which they provided to the prospective purchasers, he said.“To lay this entirely at the door of Mr Palin based on the LPE1 is, in my judgment, unreal and without foundation,” he continued.And he found that it could not be said that the disclosure of the issues by Mr Palin made the flat unsellable on the open market even now.By August 2024, all of the issues, other than the cooking odours and the electrical cabling, had been formally resolved.“Given that situation, I find it difficult to understand why the property could possibly not be sold,” he said.Having dismissed their claim, he ordered the couple to pay Mr Palin's lawyers' bill, estimated at £45,000, with £30,000 up front within 28 days. The court heard their own costs bill comes to £135,000.