A woman has won an appeal in a personal injuries claim involving a long-standing property dispute.

The dispute centres on a flat at Sea View Villa on Brookhill Road in Ramsey for which Vicki Ann Skellcorn was the leasehold owner.

She alleges the the management company which owned the freehold breached the conditions of her lease by failing to properly maintain the property.

Ms Skellcorn contended that, as long ago as November 2018, Ramsey Town Commissioners became concerned about the condition of the building - and after an inspection instructed the freehold owner to carry out repairs.

During the course of 2019 she sent no fewer than eight letters to AA Property Management Ltd requiring them to bring the property into an acceptable state of repair.

Following the respondent’s alleged failure to act, she began legal proceedings which included a claim for general damages.

The case came before Deemster John Needham in September 2020 when he made it clear that the matter would best be resolved by the parties agreeing to mediate.

But almost five years later, the matter was brought back before the Deemster as the parties had not managed to resolve their differences.

This time, he ruled that the personal injury part of the claim be struck out due to the length of time that had elapsed.

But Ms Skellcorn appealed and the appeal court has now ruled in her favour.

In a judgment, it concluded that the Deemster erred in striking out the personal injuries part of the claim.

The appeal court said consideration should have been given to an alternative to the sanction of striking out.

One such alternative, it said, could have been for the Deemster to proceed to try the action regarding ‘the bricks and mortar’ and adjourn the question of damages for personal injury to a later date.