Lawyer’s £1m flat ‘was used as a brothel’
A FLAT worth £1.2million was being used as a brothel, a court heard yesterday.
The property in Chelsea was occupied by prostitutes including a transsexual escort, according to legal papers. Neighbours complained of a regular traffic of ‘older men in suits with young girls’.
They say the owner of the top-floor flat, fiorella Marchitelli, had failed to stop it being used as a brothel, breaching the terms of a 987-year lease.
In a legal action launched last year, the company which owns the building’s freehold claimed the 50year-old solicitor should forfeit her lease and effectively lose the £1.2million property. The freehold company, which is run by Rupert foley, the heir to a baron, said she had failed to stop ‘immoral activities’. Miss Marchitelli, who let out the flat through an agent, denied she had breached the lease.
In evidence filed to a property court, known as a first-tier Tribunal, neighbour Julius Hugelshofer, an investment banker, complained he had seen ‘transvestites or women dressed like prostitutes’.
He confronted the occupant of the flat, who he believed to be Natalie ferraz, and thought the property was being used as a brothel, the court was told. Other neighbours found a website offering her services as a ‘transsexual escort’, he said.
The FTT had ruled there was a breach of the lease. But Miss Marchitelli won the right to have the case reheard and Judge Martin Rodger QC found for her, saying the FTT should reconsider.