Konrad Mizzi’s “house in London” is actually in Blackheath, Greater London

Big-talking Konrad Mizzi – who I am beginning to realise has psychological indicators of a self-deluding fantasist with the ability to impress and convince those around him – has repeatedly and deliberately given the impression that he owns a “house with garage in London”. This is what he actually puts down in his declaration of assets in parliament.

To most right-thinking people, this would mean central London unless otherwise specified. This would then set those right-thinking people wondering how on earth he got the money to buy something like that in his early 30s.

This “house with garage in London” big talk rebounded on him further when, caught on the wrong foot by public revelations of what he was up to in Panama and New Zealand, he claimed that he needed those offshore structures as a “family trust” to “hold my assets, which include a house in London with garage”. We then obviously wondered whether he had a mansion in Chelsea or Knightsbridge, and if so, whether Ilham Aliyev had given it to him as a little consideration for services rendered.

Yes, companies in Panama are routinely used by the world’s loaded individuals – whether they have acquired their money legitimately or otherwise – to hold houses and flats in London. Thousands of London houses and flats are technically owned by companies registered offshore. But those houses are generally mansions or townhouses and the flats are mansion flats which are not just in central London but in the most highly prized boroughs there.

So the public’s expectations of what Konrad Mizzi owns in London went even higher. Now I can show you photos of his “house with garage in London” and it’s actually a slit-your-wrists depressing new-build redbrick end-of-terrace in Blackheath, even further south than Greenwich (though nowhere near as salubrious or with Greenwich’s cachet), way beyond the Isle of Dogs, and so far out that it’s not even served by the remotest extremities of the tube. There’s Blackheath railway station, a couple of buses, and that’s about it.

The actual address is 1 Wycherley Close, London SE3 7QH.

Throughout this debacle, one thing has puzzled me. I couldn’t work out why Konrad and Sai Mizzi lived in a rented flat in a block called the Oxygen, in busy and interesting east London – which is the address at which they were registered on the electoral roll, and the one which I originally thought they owned – when they had a house of their own.

Why were they renting out the house they owned and renting somebody else’s flat to live in? It didn’t make sense unless they were making more money from renting out their own house than they were paying in rent for their flat, and using the difference to pay off a loan.

Now that I know that the house is in Blackheath, I can fully understand why they – or more likely, she – went ballistic and preferred to rent a flat in central London while renting out their own place to others. The commute in to central London for work, shopping or socialising is a total nightmare, and you wouldn’t want to live somewhere like that anyway unless you’re over 70 or have small children (and even so, you would probably wither away and slowly die).

The first clue that Konrad Mizzi’s “house with garage in London” wasn’t in London proper came to me when I read how much he had declared in rent receipts for it over three years since 2013: €37,500. This figure was taken from his income tax returns, obtained by the press in terms of the Income Tax Management Act which allows editors to seek the tax returns of MPs through the Speaker of the House.

I must confess that I burst out laughing when I read that. “The man really is a big-talking fantasist who impresses backwoods billies like Joseph Muscat,” I thought to myself. In London proper – and this even in Zone 2 let alone Zone 1 – you will pay around €30,000 a year in rent for a small basement flat. In Zone 1 – Soho, for instance – you will pay that amount for two rooms with a small bathroom and a galley kitchen.

I instantly understood that if Konrad Mizzi had collected the equivalent of a year’s rent for a small basement flat in Zone 2 for three years of rent for a house with garage, then this house with garage were in God-knows-what part of the Greater London Area. And sure enough.

There are two main issues with this. The fact that his “house with garage in London” is actually a nondescript new-build in Blackheath makes his claims that he intended his complicated and expensive Panama company and New Zealand trust to hold it even more ridiculous than they were to begin with. He cannot use the trust/company to hold his flat in Sliema because it is almost fully hypothecated to the Bank of Valletta, and why would anybody want to do that anyway.

The second issue is that he bought that house in 2010 when he was just 32. All well and good, you might say; they were both working and so on. But here’s the thing: they bought it for £365,000 and the land registry records say: “Lenders – none”. In other words, they bought that place cash down and didn’t take out a loan. Read the document here: RegisterSGL425621

On 20 March 2013, the Blackheath house (with garage, let’s not forget the garage) was listed for rent with Zoopla at £1,695 pcm. Today its mid-range rental value is £1,900 pcm.

The mid-range freehold value of the house today is around £560,000. The running expenses and council tax are £128 pcm – energy and water rates not included.

And here’s another important point: Konrad and Sai Mizzi listed that Blackheath house for sale with Right Move last September.

Apart from the Land Registry document, which required a token payment, all this information has been in the public domain via the internet all along, and did not require subscription or registering.