Neighbours' renovations drive out star couple

Nigella Lawson. Photo / Supplied

The scourge of basement conversion has driven one of London's most famous couples - Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson - to put their £36 million ($76 million) Chelsea home up for sale.

This week, it emerged that the owners of the property next door to Saatchi and Lawson's Eaton Square home have put in an application for a huge amount of renovation work, including a basement extension under the garden. The work would also involve removing interior walls and parts of the back wall.

This follows hard on a dispute between the reclusive Saatchi and the owners of the apartment immediately above theirs, which culminated in the police being called.

Scaffolding at the rear of their stucco house annoyed Saatchi so much that, after his appeal for it to be taken down had fallen on deaf ears, he hired his own workmen to remove it.

He was accused of causing £50,000 worth of damage to Italian marble tiles. The police came round to investigate but went away after deciding that it was a civil matter.

Now the couple have decided to move, rather than put up with more hassle.

Despite the recession, they are hoping to sell for almost 10 times the £3.8 million Saatchi paid when he bought the house nine years ago.

In the most fashionable part of London - where each house has several floors and every square metre of land is worth eye-watering sums of money - the cheapest way to increase your living space is to dig down.

For a fraction of what it would cost to buy somewhere bigger, you can add an extra room or even double your living space by renovating a basement and extending it out under the garden - but at the risk of seriously annoying the neighbours.

Saatchi, 67, is well known as an art collector as well being the co-founder, with his brother, Maurice, of one of the world's largest advertising agencies. Lawson is a celebrity chef.

- Independent