Captain Clive Kelling is in court, making the case that his West Kensington home was sold by one man and bought by another, without his knowledge, while he was in the Amazon rainforest. Nor has he seen any of the money.

'I found I was homeless,' said Capt Kelly, who stood barefoot with his face tattooed in native designs, occasionally pulling a pencil from a hole in his ear to take notes.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

It's a big repo-casualty in Holland Park, ex-home of troubled dot com gazillionaire Robert Bonnier (nostalgia here, latest here) and returned to the possession of the bank, after failure to pay the... drum-roll please... £8m of mortgages.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

So property price increases in Prime Central London might have taken a hit, but the same can't be said for rental growth which, according to Knight Frank, reached its highest point in eight years... 12.2% June-to-June. If you're a landlord, how did you do in the postcode lottery? Here are the winning numbers... SW1, SW3, NW1, SW10, W8, and the bonus postcode is W14. This month's jackpot isn't as high as you might expect. Although house prices in these postcodes have slipped slightly in the last quarter, they've still, historically, outstripped rental growth, meaning that in a lot of cases yields aren't actually that impressive. If you own the property, though, and you bought it in time... who cares?

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Thanks to the reader who alerted us to this little ten-bedroom Holland Park hideaway, marketed by Knight Frank with a guide price of £28m. Yes, ten bedrooms, 12 bathrooms to ensure that everybody's really clean, six receptions rooms to ensure that everybody can receive their own guests, and leisure facilities that include an indoor swimming pool and a funny little man statue in the back garden.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Westfield London is the giant "luxury" shopping centre planned to open across from Shepherd Bush's BBC TV Centre in 2008, and the Telegraph's Sonia Purnell quizzes locals, agents and investors about the prospects for property in the area. It's a mixed bag of opinions... some claim that it's just what's needed to lift "bandit country" north of Goldhawk Road (or NoGold as the Rat and Mouse likes to call it) into Brackenbury Village house price territory. Others say, tune in for Multiplex's latest white elephant. We tend to take a slightly bearish view. Discounting the inevitable price rises that hit every west London nabe on rotation, what is whole load more traffic really going to do for the choked roads around Shepherd's Bush Green? Call it a green. Hell, call it a village. But a big roundabout's still a big roundabout.

"John Hutton was there with his wife, Heather," reports one. "We never realised they lived so close, but Hutton was cracking jokes about life on 'old hookie's' street. He was charming, and particularly admired Ben and Neal's front garden, which they've just had redone with smart curved paving stones."

Charming, indeed. Hookie, by the way, is Abu Hamza. Ben and Neal are Ben Bradshaw (Environment Minister) and his boyfriend Neal Dalgleish (Newsnight), and John Hutton is John Hutton (new Work & Pensions Secretary). The person talking - quoted in the Independent - is a mutual neighbour invited to a Christmas party at Ben and Neal's gaff. Because the point of the story is that all four are neighbours in one particular road in Shepherds Bush. Admittedly, Hutton won't be popping next door to Hamza's (yes, he actually lives next door) for a cup of sugar, because Hamza's not home much these days. And what the hell would Hamza be up to with sugar in his kitchen anyway?