Candy stamps feet over £2m tax on mansion

Among his greatest triumphs was selling a single Knightsbridge apartment for £100 million. But Christian Candy is now savouring another sweet victory.

The luxury property developer has, I can disclose, just got the better of the taxman in the latest round of a protracted battle over almost £2 million stamp duty.

That’s the amount which Candy, 45, is claiming back eight years after his acquisition of one of London’s most covetable properties, gordon House, for £68 million.

Set in four acres and formerly part of the Royal Hospital — home to the Chelsea pensioners — gordon House also has its own orangery, built by Sir John Vanbrugh, architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, and a smaller building called Creek Lodge.

Candy paid for two leases in 2012, the longer one being for 201 years and costing £48 million, which was to be paid in four instalments.

But, two years later, as court documents explain, and after paying the first instalment, Candy gave the property to his elder brother, nick, ‘ in consideration of natural love and affection’.

The gift came at a cost, with nick Candy paying the second and third instalment, and agreeing to pay the fourth in due course — and the stamp duty all over again.

This prompted Christian to apply for repayment of £1.9 million stamp duty which he had paid — only to be rebuffed by the taxman, who ruled against him. But Candy, who is now based in monaco, took his case to court where Judge nicholas Aleksander has ruled that he can appeal against the taxman’s decision.

It’s a significant victory. ‘The Revenue has been onto people about lease arrangements because it fears that they’re being used to avoid payment of stamp duty,’ a London property specialist tells me.

gordon House, where nick Candy lives with his wife Holly Valance and their daughters, has now been reconfigured with the creation of a subterranean ‘lifestyle’ space, which includes a 60-foot swimming pool, cold plunge pool and jacuzzi, sauna and steam room, dance studio, three treatment rooms, cinema and 60-foot, two-lane bowling alley.