Homeowner must repay £225,000 Thames Water settlement after concealing sale
A High Court judge has ordered Karen Imber to repay £225,000 she received from Thames Water after finding she has no prospect of defending the company’s fraud claim. The dispute centres on her claim that repeated sewage floods had made her home unsaleable, while Thames Water says she failed to disclose that she had already sold it.
Imber’s Woodford Green home was flooded three times between 2006 and 2014. She had previously received £500,000 in compensation for earlier floods, then agreed a further £225,000 settlement in September 2023 after claiming the property’s value had been wiped out and citing other losses. She had exchanged contracts to sell for £780,000 on 2 August and completed the sale the next day; the judge said Thames Water did not know this when it settled. The court also allowed the company to pursue additional damages over the alleged misrepresentation.
In short
- Karen Imber must repay a £225,000 Thames Water settlement.
- She sold her flood-hit home for £780,000 before agreeing the payout.
- Thames Water may also pursue damages over alleged misrepresentation.
Explained simply
Thames Water is the water and sewerage company serving parts of London and south-east England. When sewage escapes from its network and damages a home, the company may agree compensation or face a claim through the courts.
Karen Imber’s home in Woodford Green flooded with sewage several times between 2006 and 2014. She had received compensation for earlier flooding, then reached a further settlement with Thames Water in 2023, saying the damage had wiped out the home’s value and caused other losses.
The dispute concerns what the company knew when it agreed to pay. Imber had exchanged contracts to sell the house shortly before the settlement and completed the sale the next day. The case raises questions about what information must be disclosed when settling a compensation claim and what a court can order if it finds that information was withheld.
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Originally published by Daily Mail as “‘Dishonest’ homeowner who won £225,000 Thames Water payment claiming her house was ‘unsellable’ after floods must pay cash back because she’d sold it a month earlier for £780,000”.