A property developer and his son have lost their appeal in an action that centred on a piece of land less than four metres wide.
Lord Justice Mummery told the Court of Appeal that the legal costs of the dispute between two London Sephardi families — Freddy Ezekiel and his son Mark, and brothers David and Haim Kohali — had “probably topped” the price of the original land deal.
In September 1999, the Ezekiels agreed to buy two plots of land from the Kohalis in Hendon, North-West London, for £300,000.
But a problem arose over a strip of land — between 3.5 and 3.9 metres wide — potentially affecting drainage and access to the site.