Britain's former dearest house on Nama list

THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency has published a list of 16 properties, including Updown Court in Surrey, once Britain’s most expensive house, which were put into receivership in August.

The properties have been listed on the State agency’s website, bringing to 892 the number of assets published online by Nama.

These include multiple properties such as apartment blocks. All but three of the new properties are in Northern Ireland or Britain.

This is the third list of properties published by Nama on which the agency has taken enforcement action seizing control of the assets from their original owners.

The last updated list published by Nama up to the end of July contained 887 properties and the new total suggests that some of these may have been sold.

Updown Court was the most expensive house in the UK when it was listed for sale six years ago for £70 million (€81 million).

The property has been on the market since 2005.

The owner of the house was Leslie Allen-Vercoe, a property tycoon who made his fortune in Russia. Irish Nationwide, the building society run by chief executive Michael Fingleton, financed loans of £63 million on the house which were transferred to Nama.

It was reported recently that the agency paid about £20 million for the loans inflicting a heavy loss on Irish Nationwide, which has been nationalised as a result of its reckless foray into property lending.

The 30,000sq ft mansion has 103 rooms, 24 bedrooms, a bowling alley, cinema, three swimming pools, heated driveways, a helipad and underground parking for up to eight limousines.

The house sits on 58 acres of gardens and woodland, which feature a lake and a 10m fountain. There is also a security lodge and two guest houses on the land.

Designed in the so-called “neo-classical Californian” style, the house is located 40km (25 miles) from central London and is being sold by auctioneers Knight Frank, according to Nama’s website.

Nama has also listed a house called Spring Cottage near Updown Court in the village of Windlesham and an apartment block called Downs Court in Eastbourne in England on the updated list of properties.

Other properties listed by the agency include six development sites, a residential property and an industrial property in Co Antrim, and two development sites in Co Tyrone on which work has started.

Nama has listed three properties in the Republic – undeveloped land on the Tramore Road in Cork, a residential house at Sandycove in Dublin and agricultural land in Portlaoise, Co Laois.

Last July, the agency first published a list of properties on which it has taken enforcement action to generate interest in the properties among buyers. Nama will update the list on a monthly basis.

Set up by the Government in 2009 to purge the banks of toxic property loans, Nama has acquired assets with a face value of €72.3 billion for €30.5 billion.