Local Property Developer Declared Bankrupt
Value of his Stamford Brook house not sufficient to pay off debts
Kam Baebee. Picture: Instagram
March 3, 2024
A local property developer who had appeared on a number of TV shows about refurbishing expensive homes has been declared bankrupt.
55-year-old Kam Babaee had expensively converted his former home, The Vicarage in Stamford Brook, but found himself in financial trouble when his marriage broke down and he lost a legal dispute over a house project in Chiswick.
He was left with over £8million in debts including £1.5million owed to his ex-wife and £765,000 to Leighton Denny, the celebrity nail technician, whose dream home turned into a nightmare after it emerged the building quality was so poor it was worth less than half what he had paid Mr Babaee to construct it. Mr Denny was awarded the sum owed by Mr Babaee in April 2022 but appears not to have been paid anything.
The petition for bankruptcy was brought by the private bank that had given him an interest-only mortgage of £5,950,000 on The Vicarage back in 2012. He had originally put the seven-bedroom house on the market for £9,000,000 but then cut the price to £6,950,000 marketing it through Hamptons, Knight Frank and Dexters but it remains unsold.
Mr Babaee had argued that the property with associated land was worth £5million but Judge Sally Barber said at the bankruptcy hearing at the High Court said that the value of the property at 20 Stamford Brook Road was £2million less than had been originally claimed. The mortgage on the property was supposed to have been paid off in 2018 and with accrued interest the debt is now £6.8 million. The judge added that Mr Babaee was 'hopelessly insolvent' and his claims he could generate income to pay of his debts in the coming months were 'based on little more than a series of hypotheticals'.
Mr Babaee was sent to England by his family at the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. His father had worked for the Shah building and fitting out villas for him. His son, after a number of different careers, went into the business of refurbishing luxury properties setting up his K10 Development company with help from Phones 4 U billionaire John Caudwell. Projects the company has worked on included the renovation of ballerina Margot Fonteyn’s £75 million home in Knightsbridge.
House is on the corner of Stamford Brook Road and Flanchford Road. Picture: Hamptons
He says his labour of love was the Stamford Brook house which was built in 1886 to a design by the architect Charles J Gladman. It originally served as a vicarage attached to the neighbouring St. Mary’s Church, which was converted into luxury apartments in 1984.
The upgraded aimed to be in keeping with the gothic feel intended by its creators including fake ruins in the garden and an original oak staircase that snakes through the property. It was used to promote the BBC2 reality show Crazy Rich Agents: Selling Dream Homes, in which Mr Babaee appeared. He claims that it has seen a string of celebrity visitors including will.i.am, Amy Winehouse, Geri Halliwell and the Jackson brothers (but not Michael).
The house remains for sale on the Hamptons web site for t£6,950,000 .
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