‘Mole Man’ house fetches £1m at auction
The 'Mole Man' million pound house
Digging a maze of 20-metre tunnels under your home that leave the property unstable, uninhabitable and prone to subsidence is no longer a barrier to house price success. The infamous Moleman’s home in Hackney has just sold at auction for £1.12m – 50% more than its guide price of £750,000.
For 40 years civil engineer William Lyttle secretly burrowed a labyrinth of tunnels under his London home which, when exposed, earn him the nickname of Mole Man. His epic dig was halted in 2006 when the tunnels undermined the foundations of his period property and the council evicted him for safety reasons before rehousing him.
In 2008 the high court ordered Lyttle to pay almost £300,000 to Hackney council to pay for repairs, but he died in 2009, leaving the council with a £400,000 repair bill.
Following his death, the property become even more dilapidated – to the point where the council had to fill in the tunnels with concrete to prevent subsidence. When they did so they found Lyttle had stashed four wrecked Renault cars, a boat, several baths and fridges and numerous TV sets under his home. They are still there, encased in the concrete used to shore up the property.
The site was sold with planning permission for the derelict structure to be knocked down and replaced with two three-storey town houses with basements. Agents have speculated that the two separate homes could be worth up to £1m each.
At the auction on 19 July, organised by Move With us, the allure of a quick property profit was clearly too much for investors, with the winning bid of £1.12m a whopping £370,000 above the guide price.
Sean King of Move with Us said: “Putting it up for auction meant that it gained lots of interest which, coupled with its position as prime real estate in Hackney, has served to help it to achieve the maximum value possible for the beneficiaries of William Lyttle’s estate.”
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