SLUMMING IT
Crumbling £40m ghost mansion left to rot for 33 years by millionaire slum landlord
The dilapidated Hamilton Palace - owned by notorious landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten - sits like a tarnished blot on the lush Sussex landscape
THIS is the crumbling £40MILLION "ghost mansion" that has been left to rot by a millionaire slum landlord for 33 years.
The dilapidated Hamilton Palace sits like a tarnished blot on the lush Sussex landscape after being abandoned to the dismay of locals.
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It is owned by Nicholas van Hoogstraten — a notorious landlord and personal friend of Robert Mugabe — who has been building it in 1985.
Complete with garish golden domes, the house near Uckfield remains only partly built despite work beginning more three decades ago.
Instead of a palatial mansion fit for a king, the creaking property is shrouded in shabby scaffolding.
And the formerly picturesque surroundings near the High Weald area of outstanding natural beauty has been reduced to a litter-strewn dumping ground.
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Such is the state of the building site that disgruntled locals have been campaigning for years to have the towering edifice torn down.
When their complaints made it to Hoogstraten, 71, the snooty ex-convict replied by branding his critics "peasants".
He said: "Even the most moronic of peasants would be able to see… that we have been busy landscaping the grounds of the Palace so as to prepare for scheduled works."
But shocking new aerial photographs show how two years on from his vile comments Hamilton Palace remains a rundown wreck.
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Speaking in 2004, millionaire landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten wins right to retrial after manslaughter conviction in the murder of business associate Mohammed Raja
They reveal that little-to-no progress has been made since pics of the property were last seen in 2016.
Without a builder in sight, the house is surrounded by trashed construction materials and ugly shipping containers.
But Hoogstraten has always defended the decades-long building project — which even features a dome-topped lakeside mausoleum.
He previously said: "Hamilton Palace is far from crumbling and was built to last for at least 2,000 years.
"The scaffolding only remains as a part of ongoing routine maintenance such a property would require until completion."
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And he dismissed calls for local homeless people to be temporarily housed in the hollow shell of the building to stave off the worst elements.
The callous landowner said: "The homeless – the majority of whom are so by their own volition or sheer laziness – are one of the filthiest burdens on the public purse today.
"The chance of my offering an opportunity for them to occupy Hamilton Palace is just ludicrous.
"Likewise, my offering accommodation to these Muslim migrants and to encourage their besiegement of our country and the unwarranted plundering of its resources is ridiculous.
"We should remove them all."
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Hoogstraten made his fortune as a slum landlord renting out shoddy properties to desperate tenants.
But he became infamous after the gruesome gangland killing of his business rival Mohammed Raja — carried out on Hoogstraten's orders.
Raja was stabbed five times before being shot in the head at his home in South London in 1999.
Hoogstraten was sentenced to ten years in jail after being found guilty of manslaughter — but his conviction was later quashed.
During the trial he was fined £1,500 for contempt of court after telling the opposing counsel: "You dirty b******d ... in due course, you are going to get it."
Since then, a judge awarded Raja's family £6million in damages — of which callous Hoogstraten has insisted they will "not see a penny".
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Another High Court judge ordered the ageing tycoon to hand over £1.5million in legal costs to the family in 2016 but they have still not been paid.
He has claimed to have "no assets at all now in the UK" to pay the damages — claiming that his empire has been broken up and is in the hands of five children he has fathered with African girlfriends.
Once dubbed by a judge a "self-imagined devil who thinks he is an emissary of Beelzebub", Hoogstraten was born in Bognor in 1946.
At 11, he began building his fortune selling rare stamps to major collectors — but it later emerged his alleged £30,000 collection had been assembled after he paid classmates to rob them from shops.
And by 14 he was wearing a suit to school — where he would excuse himself from lessons to read the Financial Times and carry out business deals.
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But his move into loan sharking saw him delve further into the dark side of the business underworld.
In 1967 he was convicted for paying a gang to throw a grenade into the home of a debtor at the age of 22.
Since then he built up his property empire — adding to his vast wealth by snaffling up estates and mining interests in Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
Hamilton Palace is now thought to be owned by Messina Investments — run by Mr van Hoogstraten's four eldest children - Maximilian, 30, Alexander, 28, Britannia, 25, and Louis, 25.
Uckfield Town Council said of the Sussex mansion: "Hamilton Palace is a private property, we are therefore unable to comment."
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