Couple takes fight to keep pet dog in London penthouse to High Court

A bitter two-year battle involving a pooch, a penthouse and pet owners has ended up before the High Court in London.

At the centre of it all is Vinnie, a Yorkshire-Maltese cross who faces being evicted from the £1 million ($1.76 million) penthouse his London owners call home.

Gabby and Florian Kuehn fronted the High Court on Thursday to launch an appeal, in a last-ditch attempt in their expensive legal battle to stop Vinnie being kicked out.

It comes almost a year after the couple lost a case in The Mayor’s & City of London Court, challenging the decision of their building’s management company to enforce its no-pets policy. 

The pair said they were given permission for the dog by the property’s freeholders shortly before they moved into their gated estate in east London in November 2015, according to The Telegraph.

However their property management company Victory Place, argued the lease had a no-pets policy, which it said the couple knew of before they bought the luxury property.

The policy does allow for pets in exceptional circumstances, such as medical reasons, but no pets have ever been allowed to live on the estate.

The month they moved in the couple received a letter from the management committee advising that Vinnie had to go. 

Although Mrs Kuehn said the dog had a “therapeutic effect” on her, the court was told she did not provide medical evidence to prove this.

The property management company was granted an injunction to have the dog evicted, with Judge Donald Cryan saying the owners hadn’t provided a special reason as to why Vinnie should be allowed to stay.

“In the event all the defendants’ case came down to is, ‘I love my dog’,” he said.

“The defendants are in breach in terms of their lease. The dog, sadly for them, will have to go,” he added.

By that stage the couple were already facing a legal bill close to £70,000 ($123,000), the Daily Mail reported. They decided to launch an appeal – meaning Vinnie was allowed to stay in the property until the legal proceedings came to an end.

Their lawyers argued on Thursday that the resident committee failed to give them a fair hearing, as they had already pre-determined their decision to refuse the couple permission, according to the Mail.

“They have not exercised their own independent judgment.”

Christopher Heather QC, representing the management company, said the board was entitled to take into account a vote at an annual general meeting in 2016, which saw 75 leaseholder votes in favour of the no-pets policy, with only Mr and Mrs Kuehn voting against it. 

The Chancellor of the High Court, Sir Geoffrey Vos, said there were strong views on either side but questioned why the case was even in front of him.

“The board are explicitly opposed to the keeping of dogs, apart from in exceptional circumstances,” he said. 

“But I don’t see how you win this case. You may win and get some costs, but then [the board] can go back and they do it properly and say you can’t have a dog.”

He noted he had never seen such “visceral opposition” to dogs and reserved his ruling on the case until a later date.