Wealthy owners of 1,600 empty properties in Grenfell borough revealed after council error

The rich owners of more than 1,600 empty properties in the same borough as the Grenfell Tower have been accidentally revealed after an error by the council.

While hundreds of people have been left homeless by the fire in June, it has been revealed that 1,652 properties – many of them owned by oligarchs, multimillionaires and foreign royalty – are lying empty.

The names of the owners were accidentally released in an email from Kensington and Chelsea council.

At least 80 people died in the tower block fire on June 14, and hundreds have been left with nowhere to live.

Only 12 families who survived have been rehoused, with many still in temporary accommodation.

The council mistakenly emailed the list of vacant homes and their 1,197 owners to a number of recipients, including The Guardian newspaper.

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They include the former Brompton Road Tube station building, once used as a command centre for Winston Churchill, but which has been vacant since 2014, when it was bought for £53 million by Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash.

The list features former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who bought a seven-bedroom home in the area in 2015 for £16 million.

It was once the home of the writer George Eliot, and includes a ceiling mural of Venus by James Thornhill, who painted the interior of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral.

More than a third of the vacant homes have been empty for more than two years, The Guardian reported, leaving owners paying a 50% premium on their council tax.

Another 1,000 homes are classed as unoccupied and substantially unfurnished, while the remaining 39 properties have been unoccupied for less than a year and are undergoing building works.

Property mogul Christian Candy owns 26 empty homes in a 1930s mansion block valued at £85 million.

Other empty properties are owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the vice-president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai.

Councillor Kim Taylor-Smith, the council’s deputy leader, said: ‘If a property has been left unoccupied and unfurnished for two years or more, property owners will be charged an additional 50% of the full council tax charge.

‘Unfortunately, we have no powers to compel owners to live in their properties but we can and do offer support and advice to help bring long-term empty properties back into use.’

(Main picture: Getty)