Cape Town - The estate agent with the sole mandate to sell the seven-bedroom Constantia mansion seized from the Gupta family in 2018 is rushed off his feet with potential clients who have signalled interest in buying the R20 million property.
Richard Huxham-Hardie said on Monday: “At present I have good interest in the property as it is a prime address in Constantia.”
The sprawling thatch-roofed mansion is in Dawn Avenue in the Bel Ombre pocket of Constantia.
Huxham-Hardie said this was considered to be one of the best roads in the affluent neighbourhood, which is one of the most prestigious suburbs in South Africa.
In their listing of the house for sale, Hardie Property said: “The home is in a state of disrepair after many years of neglect and will need stripping back to the walls, or demolishing.”
A video of the property, which sits on an 8 105m² erf in Constantia Upper, shows the thatch roof in a state of disrepair.
The lawns also look like they need urgent attention, as does the beanshaped swimming pool and some of the brick tiles on the veranda.
The property has a guardhouse, generous domestic accommodation, swimming pool and pool room, garaging, and a separate larger-than-average one-bedroomed cottage.
The family bought the home in 2005 from Mark Thatcher, son of former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, for R17m.
It It was one of the Gupta assets worth R520m appropriated in a nationwide seizure of properties, vehicles and bank accounts by the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) in April 2018.
The AFU was enforcing a court order as part of a probe into the Estina Dairy Farm scandal implicating former Free State agricultural officials, including MEC Mosebenzi Zwane.
The fraud and corruption case, related to the controversial R280m Estina Dairy farm project, was transferred to the Bloemfontein High Court last year, and in November the case was postponed to this month
At the time it was seized, the National Prosecuting Authority said it had been placed “under restraint pending finalisation of the criminal case”, and was listed in the court order as being worth R20m.
It was listed in NPA affidavits as being owned by Islandsite Investments One Hundred & Eighty (Pty) Ltd, a Gupta company that has since been placed under business rescue.
Islandsite owns other properties in Cape Town, Saxonwold in Johannesburg, the island of St Lucia, and elsewhere worth R190m.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za