A prefab in Mayfair has been sold for more than £15million after a ferocious bidding war.
Rival buyers around the globe pushed the price of the three-bedroom flat in central London ‘well above’ the £15million asking price, according to the PrimeResi property website.
That is likely to make it one of the most expensive prefabs every sold.
The desirable residence is in the Clarges building on Piccadilly.
The apartment, which is three times the size of the typical UK home, has views over Green Park towards Buckingham Palace.
The Clarges was built between 2015 and 2017 by development giant British Land using cutting-edge ‘prefab’ or ‘modular’ techniques.
The materials were manufactured in a specialist Laing O’Rourke factory and assembled on site, a method chosen to limit obstruction to traffic and disruption to passers-by.
Such was the attention to detail that the railings on the balconies mimicked the lacework of the ‘piccadill’ lace ruffs that gave Piccadilly its name. Previously the plot was occupied by offices and a cark park.
Prefab construction may be associated with shoddy workmanship.
But such was the appeal of the finished product at Clarges that the penthouse sold in 2019 for £55million.
This is possibly the top value ever fetched by a ‘prefab’.
But then the block does offer a concierge service, a swimming pool, a cinema, treatment rooms and the other extras deemed necessary in a luxe scheme appealing to ultra-high net worth individuals.
The stampede to acquire the Clarges flat has drawn attention particularly because of the stagnant state of the central London property which has been hit hard by the Chancellor’s tax measures, particularly the changes to the regime covering non-doms.
If the flat’s new owner was resident overseas and has other homes, as much as £2.7million in stamp duty would have been charged on the transaction.
