Picture this: you’ve to sell the home you’ve lived in for years only to learn that a quirk in the paperwork means the house isn’t actually yours to sell. It’s a nightmare scenario for any homeowner, and it’s one that the Daily Mail reports that Pink Floyd legend David Gilmour is going through in his own life, with a mansion valued at around $10.5 million US.
Gilmour and his wife, Polly Samson, have owned the property, a six-bedroom former public women’s bath in Hove known as Medina House, since 2011, when Gilmour purchased it through a corporate entity called Hoveco Ltd, of which he was reportedly the sole director. Three years later, in 2014, Gilmour disbanded the company, but what Gilmour calls a paperwork error resulted in the property not being transferred to his individual ownership before the dissolution took place. Under UK law, that means the house became the property of the British government, but now Gilmour is suing to get the home back so he can sell it.
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Gilmour’s original purchase of the home was a controversy of its own. Residents of the neighborhood protested Gilmour and Samson’s plans for the property, calling it “Polly’s Folly” and attempting to block their proposed transformation of the building into a modern mansion. Finally, approval was secured in 2017, and some residents who were initially opposed to the project have reportedly gone on to change their minds.
Attorney Nick Brett summed up Gilmour’s present dilemma for the Daily Mail like this:
“Imagine thinking you own a house for over a decade, particularly one worth £10-15 million, but then when you want to sell it, you discover you can’t because in fact technically legal ownership may have passed to the State. It must have come as a huge shock when he found out. It’s an extraordinary situation that is also incredibly rare.”
Rare it may be, but it remains to be seen whether Gilmour will be able to rectify the administrative error in short order or if he has a protracted court battle ahead of him. Fortunately for Gilmour, at least he doesn’t have to worry too much about his legal fees or other expenses in the meantime since he and the other members of Pink Floyd recently closed a massive music rights sale for some $400 million.