Mallya may soon have bailiffs knocking at his London doors

London (PTI): Embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya, who is based in Britain for over five years, faces the prospect of bailiffs knocking on the doors of his luxury London home any time now after a British court ruled that a bank pursuing its unpaid dues can take charge of the high value property.

The 65-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines boss intends to appeal against the ruling on Tuesday, when a High Court procedural judge concluded that Mallya’s position in the matter was “completely hopeless” at the end of an extended stay from eviction due to the pandemic. The 18/19 Cornwall Terrace property, which is located in one of central London’s prime hubs of Regent’s Park near Madame Tussauds wax museum, is of such high value that the court only referred to it as being worth “many tens of millions of pounds”.

Deputy Master Matthew Marsh noted in a virtual hearing this week to deliver his judgment that Mallya’s 95-year-old mother was currently resident at the property. This would imply that Mallya has been predominantly using his Ladywalk mansion in the Hertfordshire village of Tewin, some 40-km outside of London, but has been known to divide his time between his various homes in Britain. In earlier UK court proceedings, the Cornwall Terrace property was described as a “high class home for Dr Vijay Mallya and his family members and United Breweries Group corporate guests”.

The saga of the legal battle by Mallya and the co-defendants in the case – his mother Lalitha and son Sidhartha Mallya – to hold on to the property dates back to March 2017 when the fiveyear term on a loan from Swiss Bank UBS expired.

The bank then proceeded to redeem the GBP 2.4 million unpaid amount of the loan, taken out to replace a previous mortgage borrowing from Lloyds Bank. The loan itself was taken out by Rose Capital Ventures, a British Virgin Islands firm linked to the Mallya family trust.

Mallya’s legal team claimed that the bank had called in the loan ahead of an agreed period, while the bank had insisted that it is within its rights to call in the mortgage for non-payment.

A court order issued in May 2019 ruled that UBS had an “immediate right to possession” and stipulated that unless the mortgage has been redeemed by April 30, 2020, Mallya and the co-defendants must hand over possession of the apartment by 4pm local time on that date.