Wow

Aquatronixjenny

Thats going to be a big fat commission cheque for the EA!

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32881547.html


I'm loving the bowling ally... but for 70 million you would think they could include a carpet somewhere?

poppysarah

Costs £1m a year to run apparently.

Just think of all the dusting.

BitterAndTwisted

Updown Court has been on sale for a very, very long time. 5 swimming-pools! The daftest thing I've ever heard. The grounds are lovely but at that price they'd need to be although the house itself is horribly nouveau.

Aquatronixjenny

Its a ridiculous house, totally OTT. Who on earth would need 24 bedrooms? I bet the builders are really regretting it now.

quintwins

Aquatronixjenny wrote: »

Its a ridiculous house, totally OTT. Who on earth would need 24 bedrooms? I bet the builders are really regretting it now.

it would make a lovely hotel

Viper_7

24 bedrooms and only 23 Bathrooms? Sorry, but I wouldn't settle for less than one bathroom per room, don't want to slum it.

As well as that - the underground garage can only accommodate 8 Luxury cars... where am I suppose to park my Maestro?

BitterAndTwisted

What builders? Allegedly the owner is or was Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

I think this property is the one with legendary under-driveway heating. I know someone who used to freelance for him on the old bloodstock hobby. He'd make Croesus look like a beggar.

Jalapee

Ive emailed this to the OH.... you never know he could secretly be a millionaire...


heres to hoping

Viper_7

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/new-homes/property-28524325.html

On this link you can see the EEC rating.... 69! !!!!!!?! no chuffing way!!

dopester

Aquatronixjenny wrote: »

Its a ridiculous house, totally OTT. Who on earth would need 24 bedrooms? I bet the builders are really regretting it now.

Probably the Irish banks are regretting it. Or just stick it on taxpayer tab. For me it's a monument to greed, bad taste, a reckless credit boom, rubbish financial regulation. They've been trying to sell it for ages and ages now.

---

Bricklayer's son and his £70m des res
David Cohen, Evening Standard
4 March 2005, 1:02pm


Leslie Allen-Vercoe says he works from 7am to midnight doing deals

At this point, I want to ask Les - politely, of course - how he's flown undetected by the Rich List radar for so long. Instead, I say all too bluntly: 'Nobody seems to have heard of you, Les.'

To his credit, he does not flinch. 'It's a funny thing,' he says, 'if you punch my name into a search engine on the internet, you get 350 hits. All but 12 of those refer to publications of my youngest daughter, Emma, who is a professor of microbiology. Of the dozen hits that relate to me, all are about Updown Court. So I'm a well-kept secret. I keep a very low profile. Until I did Updown Court, most of my projects were too small to attract attention. I'm a private guy - and that's the way I like it.'

£2.5m a year interest bill
The reason Les is now emerging into the glare of publicity soon becomes obvious. He has borrowed £40m from an Irish bank to fund the development of Updown Court, which saddles him with an interest debt of £2.5m a year. I ask him: aren't you sweating that a property that only 600 people in the world can afford may take time to sell?

'Not in the least,' he says. 'My estate agents tell me it will be gone in six months. We've already had interest from buyers from Russia and the Middle East. And three Chinese called to inquire just this morning.'

November 2006 Article

According to one senior agent, the problem is that it is "a footballer's house on steroids". Apparently, the look is 20 years out of date, there is too much marble, the rooms are badly proportioned and extremely difficult to furnish, and there is no good reception room.

"It's hideous," says Joanna Wood of Joanna Trading, an interior design company that deals with some of the world's wealthiest property owners. "The Russians and Arabs are too sophisticated to be drawn in by such vulgarity. The sort of person who might once have fallen for it now protects themselves with a raft of professionals who might advise against it."

timmyt

I wonder if the seller or buyer is using Countrywide or Premier Property Lawyers for the conveyancing?