At 2-8A Rutland Gate in Knightsbridge, a £210m mansion—once Britain's most expensive house—sits empty, its only resident a homeless man living on the porch. The 45-room palace, with marble bathrooms and gold wastepaper bins, has been vacant for years, highlighting stark inequality in the UK housing market.
Anders Fernstedt, a Swedish man, has made a makeshift tent on the porch for three years. He uses a plastic bottle as a toilet, joking about 'Everest base camp problems.' The mansion, originally a row of terraced houses, was combined in the 1980s by Lebanese billionaire and former prime minister Rafik Hariri, who lived there until his 2005 assassination.
The property later passed to Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, and after his death in 2011, its lavish contents were auctioned. In 2020, it sold for £210m to a buyer linked to Cheung Chung-kiu, but reports suggest the real owner was Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan. After Evergrande's debt crisis, the mansion was put back on sale in 2022 for £200m.
The ownership of such properties often involves offshore companies, obscuring transparency. Researchers at University College London found that the value of luxury homes held in secrecy havens has soared, while many Londoners face housing insecurity. Fernstedt's presence on the porch serves as a poignant symbol of this divide.
