Taxman’s penthouse: no apparent record of property transfer. Portelli says: “No comment”

Searches in the Public Registry online system have revealed no record of taxman Ivan Portelli’s purchase of the penthouse in which he and his family have lived for the last 14 months. The same searches confirm that Portelli did not sell the modest family home – El Quinche, 1 Triq Zmien il-Bronz, Mosta – before acquiring the penthouse in 2015.

Portelli, his wife Samantha Portelli Warne, and their son and daughter moved into the bay-side penthouse flat with a rooftop pool, at 15 The Water’s Edge Apartments, Triq it-Tonn, St Paul’s Bay, shortly before Christmas 2015.

The fact that there is no apparent record of legal title to the penthouse being transferred to his name can mean one of only two things: that Portelli is being allowed to live there for free by a ‘client’ of the VAT Department where Portelli was director of operations and is now director of administration, or that the property has been transferred to a company in which he holds the shares. He wouldn’t be paying rent because nobody moves out of a home they own to pay rent somewhere else.

Searches by shareholder or director are no longer possible at the Companies Registry except for those with privileged access, so I have drawn a blank there. Should anybody be able to help, however, Ivan Portelli’s identity card number is 0089268M.

SILVIO DEBONO BUILT THE FLATS WHERE PORTELLI LIVES IN THE PENTHOUSE

While the searches were being carried out, three separate sources informed me that the entire block of flats, where Portelli lives in the penthouse flat, was built by Silvio Debono – which I confirmed through a Planning Authority search on planning applications. So I messaged Silvio Debono’s public relations and communications man, Lou Bondi, not expecting a reply as he had completely ignored my messages earlier that day about the trip his client took with the taxman to buy a Maserati car.

I am informed that the St Paul’s Bay penthouse in which Ivan Portelli and his family have lived for the last 16 months belongs to your client, Silvio Debono. Is Portelli renting it, living in it for free, or has your client transferred it to Portelli under a company name? Notarial searches show that Portelli does not own it – at least not in his own name.

Fifty minutes later, I got a reply from Bondi, who seems to have been completely subsumed by Silvio Debono’s outfit (“our Group”).

As with so many of your stories, the information is absolutely wrong. The property in question was sold by our Group to third parties (not Ivan Portelli) in 2011. I challenge you to reproduce this answer verbatim.

Great attitude for a PR man whose job it is to persuade me to like his client, I thought, and messaged back.

Not yet, because the information is incomplete. Who is the third party? You needn’t challenge me. Unlike you, I’m not paid by anyone to promote their line. I’ll wait for your answer on the third party then.

I got the answer I expected, in the groupie first person plural and with the standard insult – though not being a bogan like his client, there was no subliterate freaking-out.

We already answered the question but, true to form, you are not interested in the truth. I repeat, we as a Group have nothing to do with the property which we sold to third parties (not Ivan Portelli) six years ago. Again, verbatim please.

I smelled a story in this blanket refusal to tell me who the third party is, so I didn’t let it go. If it were just any old random person who’d bought the penthouse, Silvio Debono would have had no problem giving me the name and getting me off their back. After all, he was quite happy to strip down to his knickers on the matter of party funding, over the weekend. So I gave it another try.

Not before you tell me to whom Silvio Debono sold the flat in 2011. I’d also like an answer to the questions you ignored this morning. Why did he take Portelli with him to buy a Maserati? Did he pay Portelli’s travel/hotel expenses?

Radio silence. Mid-dehra ma tantx għadna nemmnu fil-ġurnaliżmu fuq kollox. If he wouldn’t tell me who bought it, I would have to find out myself by running a search on the company which Debono used to sell it. So I tried another tack.

What is the name of the vendor company (2011)?

DEBONO DID NOT SELL THE PENTHOUSE – HE USED IT TO PAY FRANK XUEREB

No reply to my question about the vendor company. So there was only one thing for it. I got cracking on the contractor network, and before long found out that Silvio Debono hadn’t sold the penthouse but had given it to Xuereb Installations Ltd as payment for finishing works they had done, and the transfer may not even have been made. I rang Frank Xuereb, who owns the company, and asked him whether he owns the penthouse at that address.

There was some hemming and hawing and I told him that I’d heard Silvio Debono gave it to him in payment for work he’d done for him. Yes, he said, and this is untranslatable into English, because it doesn’t necessarily mean ownership: “Iva, dak il-post kien qiegħed għandi għal xi żmien.” I asked him whether he had sold it on to Ivan Portelli under a company name or whether he is allowing him to live in it rent-free, and at first he pretended not to know who I meant and then admitted that he did.

He moved in around 15 months ago, I said. Did he get the penthouse from you or from Debono? And under what terms? “I have no idea because I can’t remember,” Frank Xuereb said. “Can you call me later after I have had time to check my records?”

IVAN PORTELLI SAYS “NO COMMENT” WHEN ASKED IF HE OWNS THE PENTHOUSE HE LIVES IN

I know a fob-off when I hear one, so I went to work on the networks again and obtained Ivan Portelli’s mobile number, and rang him. “I’ve run searches at the Public Registry and can’t find any records of the transfer of that penthouse you live in to your name,” I said. “Did you buy it or receive it under a company name, or has somebody allowed you to live there as a favour?”

“No comment,” he said, like the guilty under interrogation by the police in a BBC crime series. But he hadn’t hit me with a tidal wave of shouting, swearing and insults, like his mate Silvio Debono, so I asked again. “Are you the owner of that penthouse?”

“No comment.”

“Won’t you just tell me whether you own it or not?”

“No.”

That is the situation so far. This is what we know.

Ivan Portelli and his wife, Samantha Portelli Warne, with Family Minister Michael Farrugia at a mass meeting in Floriana to mark the Labour Party’s electoral victory, in March 2013. A short while later, Portelli was appointed director of operations at the VAT Department, with full authority over investigations and full access to people’s personal data, documents and filings.