To start us off, here are 3 things you already know:
- we’re still in a recession
- home-buyers are hard to come by
- the number of repossessions is up 50% on the first quarter of 2008 with 12,800 recorded in the 3 months of 2009
But here’s one for you… do you know the value of the most expensive property to be repossessed in the UK?
Go on, have a guess.
£2m? £3m? £5m?
nope, the most expensive house to be repossessed in the UK was a £20mil mayfair mansion which was taken from businessman Cevdet Caner. He’d obviously not heard of the sell and rent back house option offered by professional house buyers!
Ironically enough, Caner actually made his fortune in the buy to let market boom but following the collapse of his company in the recession; his £20m home was seized and he was evicted.
Court-appointed bailiffs officially took posession of the six-storey luxury flat in London’s exclusive Mayfair district and the house is to be put on the market together with a £20 million price tag. It all started in December last year, when administrators were appointed to sort out debts of £1.2bn that Caner owed various creditors. He fought the sale and eviction of his house, claiming that he had tried to repay the mortgage but had been stopped by his mortgage lender.
The loss doesn’t get any easier for Mr Caner to swallow when you look at what he spent on the property. He bought it in July 2007 for £16m and spent £6m refurbishing it, which can only make him now wish he’d decided to sell and rent back the property so he could enjoy the work and money he’d put in to it.
