Kirupakaran v Ibrahim: TCC strikes out £1.5m party wall claim after pleading failures left defendants unable to defend themselves

When a neighbour's construction works left your property partially demolished by emergency order, you would expect the courts to hear your case. What Mrs Justice O'Farrell's judgement in Kirupakaran v Ibrahim makes clear is that having a compelling story is not enough. You also need to be able to tell it in the right way.

The facts are, by any measure, serious. Gunaratnam Kirupakaran owned a mixed-use property at 166 Croydon Road in south-east London, comprising a retail unit and residential flats. In August 2024, construction works began at the adjoining property, No.164, to add additional floors and a rear extension. Within weeks, severe cracking and structural movement appeared at Mr Kirupakaran's property. By June 2025, the London Borough of Bromley had declared both buildings unsafe and ordered partial demolition on emergency grounds. Mr Kirupakaran brought proceedings against six defendants, including the developers' directors personally, the main contractor and both party wall surveyors, seeking over £1.5 million in damages.

The problem was not the claim itself. It was how it was pleaded. Or rather, how it was not.

Despite being given a clear warning by a deputy judge in November 2025 that his original pleading was "hopeless", and an unless order requiring properly particularised amended particulars of claim by 19 December 2025, the amended version filed by Mr Kirupakaran barely improved matters. It asserted that the defendants "owed statutory, common law, and professional duties" but identified neither the nature nor the scope of those duties. It alleged breaches of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, the CDM Regulations and the common law duty of care without specifying what any defendant had actually done wrong. It claimed losses flowing from those failures without explaining the causal chain. Each defendant was left, as O'Farrell J put it, without "a pleaded or otherwise identified case to admit, deny, investigate, disclose against, obtain expert evidence on, or meet at trial."

There are lessons here that extend well beyond the facts of this particular dispute.

The attempt to sue the two directors of the developing company personally, rather than the company itself, is a reminder of the difficulty in piercing the corporate veil without a clear legal or evidential basis. The company owned the property, engaged the professionals, and was party to both Party Wall Awards. Asserting that the directors were "personally involved in directing or supervising the negligent works" did not come close to establishing why they should be personally liable.

The claims against both party wall surveyors are equally instructive. O'Farrell J confirmed the quasi-judicial nature of the party wall surveyor's role under the 1996 Act, endorsing the analysis in Gray v Elite Town Management [2016] EWCA Civ 1318: surveyors resolving disputes under the Act do not assume a design obligation towards the adjoining owner and are not responsible for the adequacy of works carried out under an award. The appropriate remedy for loss arising from the works was compensation under section 7 of the Act, as expressly provided for in the Party Wall Awards themselves.

Mr Kirupakaran, who appeared as a litigant in person through an interpreter, had clearly suffered a significant loss. O'Farrell J commended counsel for all defendants for presenting their submissions in plain, accessible language at a pace that allowed for translation, describing it as "exemplary" and "best practice". The courtesy extended to him in the hearing could not, however, substitute for the legal architecture his claim required.

The claim was struck out in its entirety and Mr Kirupakaran was ordered to pay the defendants' costs.

Gunaratnam Kirupakaran appeared in person. Nigel Lewers (instructed by Clyde & Co LLP) appeared for the First, Second and Third Defendants. James Divecha (instructed by RakLAW Solicitors Ltd) appeared for the Fourth Defendant. Philip Byrne (instructed by Kennedys Law LLP) appeared for the Fifth Defendant. Nicholas Higgs (instructed by DWF Law LLP) appeared for the Sixth Defendant.