SRA-regulated solicitor Andrew Jonathan Milne has been told he must sell a block of flats in North Wales after the existing leaseholders were not offered the chance to buy the building first, the county court has ruled.
The judge has also reported Milne “to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for consideration and, if appropriate, investigation” after sending “disgraceful and inexcusable” communications to the claimant.
The judge said of Milne: “I do not consider him to be an honest or credible man … For his own ends, he is willing to resort to intimidatory and threatening language, advancing allegations that he cannot possibly believe to be justified“
Have you had communications from Andrew Milne that you are concerned about?
If so, please contact us in strict confidence
Ms Moira Rose Goulden, of Warrington, filed a claim not only as a leaseholder herself, but on behalf of the owners of four other flats in a building in Rhyl, North Wales.
In court papers filed in March 2023, exclusively seen by the mouseinthecourt, Ms Goulden alleges that Mr Milne purchased the freehold to the building without the existing leaseholders being offered the right to buy it themselves on the same terms first.
Guidance issued by the Leasehold Advisory Service explains this so-called ‘Right of First Refusal’ in further detail.
The claim alleges that Mr Milne had purchased the freehold interest of the property for £40,000 effective 1st June 2022 “but no offer notice had been served on the qualifying tenants of the premises“.
Accordingly, it is claimed, “the requisite majority of qualifying tenants [are] entitled to compel sale by [Mr Milne] to the tenants“.
The property displayed on the Pugh auctioneer website
Court documents explain that the leaseholders made the claim against Mr Milne in a notice dated 5th December 2022. A response disputing the right of Ms Goulden to acquire the freehold was said to have been received the following month.
A one-day-trial was held in December 2023, and the judgment was handed down earlier today (Monday 8th January) at a remote hearing attended by the mouseinthecourt.
His Honour Judge Keyser KC explained in a 52-paragraph-judgment that as it had been agreed between the parties that the original freeholder hadn’t served the required notice on all the leaseholders the question for the court was whether Mr Milne had.
We’re told that on 27th April 2022 the freehold of the property was marketed for sale at auction with Mr Milne the successful bidder.
It was Mr Milne’s case that he had sent a letter to the leaseholder of each residential flat at the property dated 25th May 2022 purportedly in compliance with the requirements of the landlord and tenant act.
It was said that the leaseholders “say that they never received this letter and they do not accept that it was ever sent“.
Following Milne’s acquisition of the property we’re told Mr Milne commenced litigation against the present claimant, Ms Goulden, for £66,100. This was said to be for service charge arrears.
Those proceedings are currently subject of what was described to the judge as an “informal stay” pending the outcome of this case.
The judgment records that Mr Milne served a counter-notice dated 3rd January 2023 disputing the claim that Ms Goulden had a right to acquire the freehold.
The judge described the counter notice in the following way: “This is a remarkable, 11-page document, to which mere paraphrase or selected passages cannot do justice.”
Quite a remarkable statement from the judge who drew attention to several elements of the letter.
Threatened Costs
So-called ‘Section A’ threatened to join the former landlords and their professional advisers to the claim: “This means that your four customers can expect to be ordered to pay their costs as well at the end of the trial.“
Spoiler alert: They weren’t joined, and Milne was ordered to pay costs and interest.
Accusations of fraud
Mr Milne is said to have set out the reasons for concluding that less than 50% of the property was in residential use and was therefore exempt from the relevant requirement to serve notices. After setting out these conclusions Milne said:
“It is clear from this that there was never any basis for your Notice dated 5 December 2022 and you have acted both maliciously and dishonestly in serving it. I formally accuse you and your four customers of fraud. I claim damages for fraud for the costs of investigation of your Notice dated 5 December 2022 and the preparation and service of this Counter Notice. I have also ceased to progress various matters at Crown House and claim damages of £10,000 a month from your company and each of your four customers from 5 December 2022. You should take this as a formal Claim against you and I require the name and address of your professional indemnity insurers by return and your policy number. Please agree to pay me damages by 5pm on 31 January 2023 failing which Court proceedings will be issued against you and your four customers without any further notice.“
Wow.
It is noted in the judgment that no agreement to pay damages was forthcoming and that no proceedings were ever commenced.
More threatened litigation
Section H of the counter-notice said that Dominos, one of the commercial lessee’s on part of the ground floor, was threatening to sue over disrepairs. The text said that any disrepairs were due to the non-payment of service charges, and that Mr Milne intended to “join the four tenants into any Court proceedings brought by Dominos and the tenants can decide if they wish to pay a substantial six figure sum to address Domino’s complaints. If they do not want to, they must then pay to mount their defence of the proceedings to the end of the trial and be prepared to pay any Judgment if they are unsuccessful.“
Milne targets the claimants solicitors
Milne suggested in his counter notice that the claimants firm of solicitors had given “fake identities” because it was in “very serious financial difficulties” and was attempting to “operate under the radar.”
The judgment quoted from Milne’s counter-notice:
“49. It is disgusting that you were insolvent, because you were incapable of managing your own affairs, but you used fake identities to harass me with a fake Notice just so you could milk your client of £10,000 for completely worthless work.“
“50. Your gross professional misconduct is above the evidential threshold for prosecution before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. … An expert has examined all the documents and has identified 37 separate charges to make against you. The expert has recently dealt successfully with one of the largest cases to ever be referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Virtually 100% of prosecutions are successful. Your misconduct is particularly blatant and persistent. I require you to show cause by 5 pm on 31 January 2023 why I should not make Application to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal against your Company and both [N] without any further notice or warning.“
When Milne was asked at trial who the “expert” mentioned in this paragraph of the notice was he initially claimed to be entitled to refuse to answer on grounds of privilege. When the judge rejected the claim of privilege and asked him to answer, he declined to do so.
“As the defendant refused to identify the expert, I suppose it is possible that he is purporting to be his own expert” commented the judge who regarded this “claim to have been untrue, both because the defendant has failed to identify anything that would have led a competent expert to give such advice and because of his refusal to name the expert after I had ruled that he could not assert privilege in the name“.
After making various inaccurate assertions about the claimants solicitors being “fake” Milne advised the leaseholders “to seek independent legal advice and ask genuine solicitors to provide [an explanation as to] why two sets of fake details were given.“
“fake ‘Solicitors’ called ‘Freddy the Gerbil’“
Milne also said:
“It is important for the four individuals you claim to represent to understand that they were not represented by solicitors, or even by an individual solicitor, in the giving of the fake notice dated 5 December 2022. They have none of the protections of a solicitor giving and signing the fake Notice dated 5 December 2022. The Notice lacks any legal validity and the position is just the same as though it had been signed by fake ‘Solicitors’ called ‘Freddy the Gerbil’ and a fake individual ‘solicitor’ called ‘Billy the Guinea Pig’.“
Milne alleged that the solicitors’ failure to provide correct corporate information was a criminal offence. He apparently asked for the firm’s insurance details, threatening to apply to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for both senior partners in the firm to be suspended from practice until the details were provided.
Security for costs
Mr Milne must be quite the expert on ‘security for costs’ given he was defending an application for £0.5m of them last Friday at the High Court in London in his dispute with Open Access Finance. Judgment in that matter is expected to be handed down on Monday 15th January 2024.
Back in North Wales however, we’re told Milne said that if court proceedings were commenced, security for costs was required from Mr [A] “on the grounds that he is a foreign national who lives overseas.” The amount of security required, which was said to represent “the costs to the end of trial”, was “£300,000 plus VAT.”
In evidence at court, Mr Milne said that this was a typographical error and should have read, “£30,000 plus VAT“. However, the judge said that “having regard to the tenor and tone of the counter-notice as a whole, I reject that evidence…I do not believe that there was any error.”
The judgement records that “needless to say, no security for costs was given and the defendant did not make an application in that regard, as he threatened to do.“
“redolent of bad faith”
The counter-notice, which was “discussed at some length” in the judgment “is redolent of bad faith.”
HHJ Keyser KC said “For his own ends, he is willing to resort to intimidatory and threatening language, advancing allegations that he cannot possibly believe to be justified.“
“disgraceful and inexcusable”
Mr Richard Oughton, the barrister representing the claimants, submitted that the counter-notice “was an attempt to intimidate the purchasing tenants and to obscure the true issues“. The judge said he regarded this “submission as well-founded“.
In a rather damming finding HHJ Keyser KC said:
“The terms of the counter-notice would, to say the least, have been inappropriate coming from anyone. Coming from a practising solicitor, they are disgraceful and inexcusable.“
Later saying:
“I shall refer this judgment, and in particular the matters set out [above], to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for consideration and, if appropriate, investigation.“
This isn’t the first time that Mr Milne has been accused of litigation misconduct.
In Milne v Open Access Finance a High Court judge described a letter written by Milne as “expressed in terms which are both aggressive and hectoring” causing “very real concern” to the court.
We asked Mr Milne about the letter on camera outside the high court. He later made “palpably untrue” and “scandalous allegations” that this was an attack which left him “close to death“.
At a high court hearing last Friday in the same matter, the court was also taken to adverse findings made against Milne in a 2013 tribunal ruling.
We were told that Chairman Mark Martynski, sitting on the London Rent Assessment panel, had found Andrew Milne’s conduct “can be properly described as unreasonable, frivolous or vexatious” having made “very serious allegations – greed, laziness asset stripping, fraud, etc – without any real evidence in support“.
“I did not find his calculation pellucid”
The court had to make a finding as to whether over 50% percent of the premises could be considered residential. If not, then the requirement to offer the leaseholders the right of first refusal to buy the freehold wouldn’t apply.
The court considered evidence from Ms Hannah James, a chartered building surveyor, of Hannah James Associates Ltd, who had been appointed as a single joint expert. She found the building was 59.28% residential and therefore the right of first refusal did apply.
Mr Milne offered his own calculation, which purported to show that an area in excess of 50% of the total internal area was occupied or intended to be occupied for non-residential purposes. The judge rejected these stating: “I did not find his calculation pellucid“
Did Milne serve the notices?
It was Mr Milne’s case that he had sent a letter, dated 25th May 2022, to the leaseholder of each residential flat at the property purportedly in compliance with the relevant law.
It was said that the leaseholders “say that they never received this letter and they do not accept that it was ever sent“
“I do not consider him to be an honest or credible man”
The judge, “having considered the totality of the evidence” said he did “not believe the defendant’s claim that he sent the letter dated 25th May 2022. First, I do not consider him to be an honest or credible man.”
Ouch.
Second, it’s said that Milne, although “repeatedly insisting” he “was acting properly and compliantly with all legislation“, and “though a practising solicitor, did not send any letters by a “signed for” service and has no documentary record of posting.“
The judge also considered that “the letter of 25th May 2022 looks like a later concoction designed specifically for the purpose of raising a time-limit objection to the purchase notice…The very date of the document gives grounds for suspicion“.
Given that the date of the purported letter was before the date of purchase this meant it “was not capable of being a valid notice“. Oh dear.
Conclusion
On the preliminary issue on whether the claimant is entitled to acquire the freehold estate in the Premises pursuant to the purchase notice dated 5 December 2022, “I hold that she is so entitled” concluded the judge.
Annnnd the costs….
After the judgment had been handed down the Judge explained that there was a further issue remaining in the litigation – exactly how much should the building be sold for. It was said that Mr Milne believed the property to be properly worth in the region of £200k – £400k although the right of first refusal normally dictates that this is done on the same terms as the purchaser, ie for £40k.
It was explained this issue would be dealt with by another judge in due course as “I generally don’t deal with county court work at all and certainly not in North Wales“. The parties were given a timetable to exchange evidence. It was explained the litigation could continue at the county court or transferred to an appropriate tribunal.
Legal costs are normally paid by the unsuccessful party in civil litigation however Mr Milne contended that as “proceedings are going to go forward in a further hearing and we don’t know how that will pan out” the court shouldn’t decide the issue today.
The judge disagreed, and after hearing lengthy submissions, including Mr Milne at one point describing his opponents barrister as “the shining light of competence”, made a decision to award costs of £28,054 (inc vat) against Mr Milne.
The judge ruled that “costs may be paid by deduction from the purchase price but I don’t know how long all of this will go on and it seems to me there ought to be a provision for interest on those costs.“
Mr Milne disputed having to pay interest on the amount outstanding submitting that he doesn’t “receive interest on the £40,000…If the £40,000 was bearing interest I could not dispute the figures“.
The judge replied “the reason why you’re not getting interest on the £40k is that you’re declining to receive it“. In effect saying that had Mr Milne sold the property to the leaseholders in the first place, and avoided coming to court, he would have the money in his bank account right now.
The court ordered that interest, at 8%, will accrue at £6.13/day from January 23rd.
If Mr Milne didn’t want to pay interest there was “nothing to stop the defendant writing a cheque” concluded the judge.
In The County Court and The Family Court at Wrexham
Before His Honour Judge Keyser KC
Case No: K00RL163 Goulden v Milne
(Previously J6QZ7A3Y Milne v Goulden)
8th January 2024 10.00am
Hearing via CVP
(1) Andrew Jonathan Milne
-v-
(1) Moira Rose Goulden
The work on this site is protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our site for your personal use and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to content posted on our site.
You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our site must always be acknowledged.
You must not use any part of the content on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.
Mouse in the Court 
Thank you Daniel for exposing the ridiculous and the ridiculi of people and Arrogant Officers of the Law who abuse their positions and the Law as well.
Please keep up your very important work and disclosures.
LikeLike
What an amazing case. Being a practising solicitor myself, I told my brother “Goulden wins in court”. His response? First time for everything!
LikeLike