Couple trusted an old friend to transform their back yard – only to end up suing


An August day in 2012 and friends gathered at a £5 million house on a private estate in North London to enjoy food, drink and one another’s company.

While some grouped around the TV to watch the action from across the capital at the Olympic Games, others chatted with hosts Peter and Lynn Burgess about their plans for the property.

Both keen gardeners, they’d had designs drawn up to transform the steeply sloping land at the rear into a landscaped garden with terraces, paths, lawns and mood-lit flower beds.

Battle: Peter and Lynn Burgess are pictured in the garden of their North London home. Speaking publicly for the first time about the case, the Burgesses point out that Mrs Lejonvarn was, in fact, represented on a no-win, no-fee basis by a firm of hot-shot City lawyers

It was an ambitious project, and came with a hefty price-tag — the quote they had received was for more than £150,000, which even the wealthy couple felt was on the high side. Basia Lejonvarn, one of the guests, agreed.

‘My guys could do that,’ the qualified architect casually commented.

And with that, a chain of events was set in motion that would quickly come to dominate — and almost destroy — the lives of those involved.

Because, fast-forward eight years, and — while the garden may be well and truly transformed — the cost, both financial and emotional, has been appalling.

After falling out with Mrs Lejonvarn, the Burgesses sued her for £265,000, claiming she had botched the job.

But, following endless hearings, last week the Court of Appeal ruled against them — landing the couple with a legal bill of £1.5 million.

As even the judge admitted, it was an eye-watering sum — a throwback to the ‘bad old days’ when ‘such litigation was a byword for expense and delay and where the costs were often out of all proportion to the sums at stake’.

The garden is pictured above before work began. Both keen gardeners, they'd had designs drawn up to transform the steeply sloping land at the rear into a landscaped garden with terraces, paths, lawns and mood-lit flower beds

The garden is pictured above before work began. Both keen gardeners, they’d had designs drawn up to transform the steeply sloping land at the rear into a landscaped garden with terraces, paths, lawns and mood-lit flower beds

Because, if you add in the landscaping work, it means that the garden will have cost the couple £2 million in total.

And, as the Mail can reveal today, it has also left recruitment boss Mr Burgess fighting for his health and reputation.

In October, the 62-year-old suffered two life-changing strokes due in large part, he believes, to the stress of the case.

To cover their costs, the couple have had to re-mortgage their house three times. 

Further, they balk at the picture painted of Mrs Lejonvarn as a helpless ‘victim’.

‘Have stood up to bullies and have won!’ she tweeted after the latest ruling.

Speaking publicly for the first time about the case, the Burgesses point out that Mrs Lejonvarn was, in fact, represented on a no-win, no-fee basis by a firm of hot-shot City lawyers.

‘People think I am some kind of monster,’ says Mr Burgess, struggling to control his emotions. 

‘I have never been called a bully in my life. She feels that she has been punished and yet there was no risk to her at all, but huge risk to us. You can get big powerful lawyers and the ordinary person is just crushed. All we wanted to do was landscape our garden.

‘We didn’t want to punish anyone. Who is punishing whom? We just wanted the garden done. It is our hobby, that is what we do.’

Given the history of this sorry saga, such claims were never going to go unchallenged by the other ‘side’.

Sure enough, contacted by the Daily Mail, Louis Flannery QC, Mrs Lejonvarn’s solicitor, countered: ‘It is farcical for the Burgesses to say that they are the real victims in all of this — no they aren’t. They tried to crush Basia by taking her to court and suing her for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The garden is pictured above during the work. As well as being friends, Mr Burgess had employed Mrs Lejonvarn to carry out work on his firm's offices. He had also loaned the couple £67,000 to tide them over when they were moving house. And so, they say, it was not unexpected when Mrs Lejonvarn showed an interest in their garden landscaping plans

The garden is pictured above during the work. As well as being friends, Mr Burgess had employed Mrs Lejonvarn to carry out work on his firm’s offices. He had also loaned the couple £67,000 to tide them over when they were moving house. And so, they say, it was not unexpected when Mrs Lejonvarn showed an interest in their garden landscaping plans

‘They accused her of fraud and professional negligence, all over her good-natured and good-hearted attempt to help them out with their garden. And they have finally been exposed.’

Brought up in a council flat in Tottenham, Mr Burgess is very much a self-made man. 

He started work as a shoe shop manager then, in 1988, set up his own recruitment company. Other linked businesses followed, as did substantial financial reward.

In 2010, he and his Canadian wife purchased a detached house on a private estate in Highgate, North London, for £3 million.

They had been friends with Mrs Lejonvarn and her husband, Jason, for some time, having lived near to one another at their previous London home.

A 55-year-old mother of two, Mrs Lejonvarn is also Canadian, but trained as an architect in America.

Her husband is a successful financier who went to university in Minnesota before moving to work in the UK.

The pair settled in London in the Nineties and he now works for investment firm Mellon.

Some years later, the two couples got to know one another, becoming good enough friends to go on holiday together.

‘We saw them at occasional dinners for the first few years,’ says Mrs Burgess, explaining that they became closer when she was unwell in 2007.

‘They were very, very supportive when Lynn was very ill,’ says Mr Burgess. ‘It is mind-boggling what has happened since.’

As well as being friends, Mr Burgess had employed Mrs Lejonvarn to carry out work on his firm’s offices. He had also loaned the couple £67,000 to tide them over when they were moving house.

And so, they say, it was not unexpected when Mrs Lejonvarn showed an interest in their garden landscaping plans.

‘We knew she was an architect,’ says Mrs Burgess, a 62-year-old graphic designer. 

‘We didn’t know she did landscaping as well. She offered her services at that point. You know, loosely, she said: ‘My guys could do that for you’ and I think it was probably some months later that we picked it up with her, maybe the following spring, nailing her down with quotes and what she could do or couldn’t do or whatever.’

It was an ambitious project, and came with a hefty price-tag — the quote they had received was for more than £150,000, which even the wealthy couple felt was on the high side. Basia Lejonvarn, one of the guests, above, agreed. 'My guys could do that,' the qualified architect casually commented

It was an ambitious project, and came with a hefty price-tag — the quote they had received was for more than £150,000, which even the wealthy couple felt was on the high side. Basia Lejonvarn, one of the guests, above, agreed. ‘My guys could do that,’ the qualified architect casually commented

But it is precisely the nature of that relationship — casual advice from a friend or a formal work agreement — that would go to the heart of the forthcoming dispute.

Work on the garden began in May 2013, starting with groundworks. But, by early July, Mr Burgess was unhappy with what was going on. 

Firstly, he disputed that the budget for the works had been set at £130,000, saying he understood it to be £78,000. He also blamed Mrs Lejonvarn for a litany of alleged defects. As a result, the couple and Mrs Lejonvarn acrimoniously terminated their friendship.

The Burgesses then employed the landscaper who had originally quoted to complete the job, incurring additional costs to make good what had already been done.

In 2015, they sued Mrs Lejonvarn for £265,000 in damages. It would be the first shot to be fired in a legal battle that would last five years.

Mrs Lejonvarn would claim that she had merely provided free advice to them on a friendly basis, in a ‘non-commercial, informal and social context’.

Wanting to spare both sides ‘the acrimony, stress and expense of litigation’, three weeks after the start of proceedings she offered to settle the case for £25,000.

But the offer was rejected by the Burgesses and, in 2016, they drew first blood when the High Court found her to be partly at fault, ruling that, as a professional, she ‘assumed responsibility’ for the project and owed the couple a legal duty of care.

Mrs Lejonvarn took the case to the Court of Appeal, which found that the original judge had overstepped the mark when it came to deciding what areas of the build she had been involved with.

Another High Court hearing followed in 2018, with a judge duly dismissing the couple’s claims and finding that their insistence that Mrs Lejonvarn negligently project managed and designed the garden ‘lacked credibility and conviction’.

But even that wasn’t the end of it. There was still the matter of legal fees to deal with. The court had ruled that Mrs Lejonvarn’s costs should be assessed on what is known as a ‘standard basis’, rather than an indemnity basis.

Indemnity costs are awarded as a penalty where there has been culpable behaviour on the part of the paying party, while with standard basis the court will allow only costs proportionate to matters at issue.

Again, Mrs Lejonvarn appealed and, earlier this month, the court again found in her favour. 

Lord Justice Coulson ruled that the Burgesses’ decision to continue was partly born out of ‘an irrational desire’ to punish Mrs Lejonvarn, which was ‘unlinked to the merits of the claims’.

So why on earth did the Burgesses keep throwing good money after bad? They say that, at the start of the dispute, they were advised that their maximum ‘exposure’ if the case went against them was £100,000, but that cost started to spiral out of control after Mrs Lejonvarn switched lawyers.

Mrs Burgess says that ‘what started as a small disagreement with both sides using local law firms’ changed dramatically when City lawyers Stephenson Harwood started to represent Mrs Lejonvarn on a no-win, no-fee basis, known as a ‘conditional fee agreement’.

‘They proceeded to throw everything they could at the second trial,’ she said.

The couple also point out that Stephenson Harwood has in the past acted for the firm for whom Mr Lejonvarn works. But Mr Flannery QC insists that is just a coincidence and that he had in fact first been introduced to Mrs Lejonvarn by an old friend.

After falling out with Mrs Lejonvarn, the Burgesses sued her for £265,000, claiming she had botched the job. But, following endless hearings, last week the Court of Appeal (above) ruled against them — landing the couple with a legal bill of £1.5 million

After falling out with Mrs Lejonvarn, the Burgesses sued her for £265,000, claiming she had botched the job. But, following endless hearings, last week the Court of Appeal (above) ruled against them — landing the couple with a legal bill of £1.5 million

And the Burgesses themselves are wealthier than most.

‘We won’t be living out on the streets or anything like that, but we have had to borrow money against the house,’ says Mr Burgess when asked if they can afford the legal fees. ‘We took out the first mortgage to pay for the garden, which should have cost £78,000, but cost £400,000 to put right.

‘We then had to take out another mortgage to pay our own legal fees because they were so high. We accepted that. We were going to pay a fair set of costs.

‘And now they can run up £1 million of costs with the luxury of not having to pay if she lost. When you get on this treadmill, you can’t get off.’

Why didn’t they accept the £25,000 that Mrs Lejonvarn had initially offered and be done with it?

‘The claim was for almost £200,000 then and we seemed to be more in the driver’s seat at that point. The advice we took was that we should pursue it,’ says Mrs Burgess. ‘So we didn’t take it.’

Should they choose, the couple could now take the case to the Supreme Court.

‘We are really loathe to do that,’ says Mrs Burgess. ‘It has gone on for much too long and we want to put an end to this. It is just stressing us both out and especially Peter because, more than anything, his health is the critical issue.’

As a result of the strokes, Mr Burgess has had trouble walking and talking. ‘His strokes are definitely a direct result of stress,’ says his wife. 

‘It has been a roller coaster over the past number of years. Just when we think things have been sorted out then, whoosh, they all go up again.’

As for the garden, can they even bear to look at it now?

‘It is a beautiful garden,’ insists Mrs Burgess. 

‘We don’t view it with the baggage it came with. When we got the original quote from the landscaper, we now realise it was a very good quote, but at the time we thought: ‘Gosh, it is so expensive.’ If I had to do it all over again I would just go with the original.’

And their former friend?

‘There is too much hating people in the world,’ says Mr Burgess. ‘I just want to forget about it and get on with my life.’ His wife adds: ‘Do we wish we’d never started this process? Yes. The only winners have been the lawyers.’

And so, perhaps, it’s only fair to give the last word to Mr Flannery. Albeit words the Burgesses probably won’t want to hear.

‘I will say in my 30 years as a solicitor, I have never had a case that was more deserving of the result that this case has had,’ he says. ‘I have never seen a claim less meritorious than theirs fought with such ferocity by them and fought with such unstopping firepower.

‘Every letter was met with a longer letter, every query with a longer query. They stopped at nothing. They wanted to punish her. Mr Burgess has simply had his retribution. He has met his nemesis. And that’s what happens in true justice.’