For sale (again): the four flats above the former Leslie Arms go to auction later this month, valued at £650,000 The sale is on behalf of the receivers, not Anwar Ansari
In the latest sign of difficulties for businesses in Croydon, one of the borough’s biggest developers and landlords – a political donor to Sadiq Khan and Yvette Cooper in the past – is being forced to sell several properties. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Troubled business: Anwar Ansari has lost at least six companies to the receivers
The property empire of Croydon-based developer Dr Anwar Ansari appears to be close to collapse, with at least six companies in which he has an interest currently subject to “Receiver action”, according to public records at Companies House.
At its peak, properties owned by Ansari and members of his family were thought to be valued at at least £90million.
They include several former office blocks in Croydon town centre which Ansari’s development firms converted into flats under Permitted Development rules. Other Ansari companies would then manage the rental properties.
He also owns Coombe Farm in Lloyd Park, which is not currently subject to “Receiver action”, and The Leslie Arms, the listed Victorian pub on the junction of Cherry Orchard Road and Lower Addiscombe Road.
The company that owned The Leslie Arms is among those subject to “Receiver action”, with the receivers having put that property’s four flats up for auction later this month.
Others now under the control of a receiver include Cygnet House (12-14 Sydenham Road) Metro Point (49 Sydenham Road), East India Estates Ltd and 5 Sydenham Road.
Ansari had the Grade II-listed Leslie Arms up for auction in June, with a guide price of £1.45million for the entire building. The lot was withdrawn less than 24 hours before the auction. Ansari refused to give any reason for this change of plan. Questions had been raised about the commercial valuation placed on the building by its owner.
Ansari did not respond today to Inside Croydon’s invitation to comment on the plight of his businesses.
Lost control: Cygnet House in central Croydon is among the Ansari Permitted Development blocks of flats now under control of receivers
Companies House shows Ansari, 68, as the director or former director on more than 80 company listings.
Anecdotally, sources have suggested that there have been signs that all was not well with some of those companies – many of which are specific project vehicles that include “AA Homes and Housing” in their title – and most of which deal with property in and around Croydon.
It is suggested that Ansari may have over-borrowed, which is never a good position to be in but especially so, as now, when the value of the properties he borrowed against are falling.
And Ansari was left with fewer alternative sources of funding in the past year or so, following a criminal conviction over his failure to control three large Anatolian guard dogs kept at his Coombe Farm home. Risk-averse lenders tend to avoid borrowers with criminal convictions.
Failed to sell: the disused garages on Southbridge Road were offered at auction for £75,000
Ansari had said he would appeal against his Kangals conviction.
The four flats above the former Leslie Arms are listed by Allsops for auction on August 20, valued at £650,000.
The auction is being undertaken on behalf of the receivers. The ground floor and basement have not been seen as listed for sale. These two floors have been used as offices by another Ansari-linked company, despite planning permission for office use having been refused by Croydon Council.
Faced with the need to raise cash, and lots of it, and quickly, a number of properties around the country connected to Ansari or his businesses have been put up for auction.
Ansari may be unique in being the owner of two heritage buildings placed on the “at risk” register by the Victorian Society. As well as the Leslie Arms, he has been roundly criticised for his neglect of the Rockwell Green Water Tower in Somerset. That is among the properties now being sold off, as is a plot of land by Wetherby Close and a wildlife reserve in Lewisham which has also attracted controversy for its dilapidated state.
Neglected: the landmark Rockwell Green Water Tower in Somerset
Two near-derelict garages on Southbridge Road, between a house and St Andrew’s Church, failed to reach the reserve price of £75,000 at a recent auction.
It is reckoned that at least a dozen properties are included in this fire sale, while Ansari has already lost four tower blocks and the Leslie Arms to the receivers.
It is quite the fall from grace for someone who was once a prominent donor to the Labour Party, including providing financial support to campaigns for Sadiq Khan and Yvette Cooper.
Dr Ansari chaired central Croydon’s constituency Labour Party for a spell in the 2010s, and in 2014 he paid for an election victory party for Tony Newman’s Labour councillors after they won control of the Town Hall. In 2015, Sarah Jones used an Ansari property for her parliamentary campaign.
In more recent times, however, that relationship soured, as disputes over Labour’s landlord licensing scheme and the party’s failure to address legitimate concerns of many members over the situation in Gaza and Palestine had seen the multi-millionaire property developer and landlord drift away from Labour.
Read more: £1.45m Addiscombe landmark building withdrawn from auction
Read more: Leslie Arms timeline: sad 25-year decline of heritage building
Read more: Addiscombe’s Grade II-listed Victorian pub ‘at immediate risk’
Read more: Property developer ordered to pay £65,000 over dog attacks
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That’s a real feel good story, heartwarming really. Thanks for the exclusive!
C’mon Carl: what’s the beef?
Just a microcosm what is going on in Croydon hence why developers like Hobee Land sold up for a loss. You can actually see on Loopnet that Slug and Lettuce and Weidao premises are already up for rent to new businesses. Landlords like them would rather not keep their premises empty as they have to assume business rate taxes. Industrial estate warehouses along Purley Way have many vacancies too. Newbuild residential flats are trying to be sold for losses too. Westfield were late to build a shopping mall . Now they missed the appartment boom. What’s next? Just build more flats and rent to council? I mean what us the point of that? Zero innovation. Zero business creativity. And in the end as Croydon is not getting outside wealthy investors in …everything collapses in on itself. Meanwhile Mayor Perry can gloss over whatever he wants and keep lying and lying….
So Ansari has finally reached over reach and you can’t keep borrowing to retain liquidity when even the most insensate of lenders can see all you have is a decrepit stock of poor quality assets. As with most fire sales by callous property developers expect to see conflagrations appear in the material leftovers of a collapsed empire.
Ideally Coombe Farm is eventually taken as well if his finances are in freefall like this.
A pictueresque area reduced to nothing more than a flytipping spot for dodgy businesses by him and his ilk, hiding it behind the gates with fake claims of being a community/religious centre, so people can’t see the pathetic state it’s currently in.
I think the last time UK property prices fell by a significant amount was around 1990. It looks like this may be happening again and it causes all sorts of problems, not least with negative equity and developers/ house builders. Compulsory purchase rules/law become a minefield and it affected the Tramlink scheme such that owners had to be compensated for loses they were forced to incur.
He was my landlord at Coombe farm and was a bastard to everyone including the staff he rarely paid. He was openly racist to the poor Poles who worked for him. I loathed him and am smiling at the thought that he has burnt through his inherited wealth.