Squatter who sold pensioner’s house for £540,000 says he’s £255,000 out of pocket

A squatter who took legal ownership of a pensioner’s house and then sold it for £540,000 has claimed it has turned his life into a ‘nightmare.’

Keith Best, 58, has said the perception he is a ‘thief who cheated an old man’ cost him his career and meant he lost his £75,000 a year job.

The former Virgin executive spoke out on Monday to try and clear his name after articles over the past decade have, cost him his health, money, and the life of his mother, he claims.

The builder has insisted that after spending £345,000 on compensation, £150,000 on renovations, and £400,000 on legal fees he has made a loss overall.

In 1997 Mr Best noticed that the house in Newbury Park, east London, had been empty for some time and he began renovating it.

The property had belonged to Doris Curtis who died in the 80s and left it to her divorced son Colin.

He then lived there alone until 1996 when he moved out to another house he inherited. 

Mr Best told the Mail Online that Mr Curtis ‘didn’t care about the house, never went there and he didn’t even know about it’. 

He said: ‘I’ve been portrayed as a thief who cheated an old man out of his home but that’s not true… the whole thing has been a nightmare.

‘It affected my health and cost me a lot of money. I never made anything from this and yet it’s being made out that I robbed a pensioner.

‘I have not made a profit.’

Mr Curtis continued to pay council tax on the property but did not maintain it or visit, giving the younger Mr Best the impression that it was now his own home and he moved into the house in 2016.

After gaining squatters’ rights, he then sold it for £540,000 to the Hayat family in 2020. 

Mr Best said he lost his £75,000 a year job as an executive with Virgin because of ‘all the negative publicity’.

The Mail has reported he is now unemployed, living in a large house in Essex, and driving a Range Rover. 

‘I went to court eight times over the house, I was sick of it by the end,’ he said. ‘I tried to settle with the family (of Mr Curtis) before it even came to court.’

‘It killed my mum,’ he added about her death two years ago. ‘She saw the effect that it was having on me. It was awful. I regret the impact it had on my health and that I didn’t make any money from this.’

The Mail said Mr Curtis, who died in 2018 in his 80s, had spent his final years living on his £261 a week state pension in a small flat in Romford. 

He had lost his legal battle for control of the house in 2016, with proceedings beginning in 2012.

After this, he launched a counterclaim but this also failed as he was not a registered administrator of his mother’s estate.

Mrs Curtis died without a will and her son said he had not realised he needed to apply for administration rights, 

He said afterward: ‘It’s not fair. The law is an ass. It’s like someone getting in your car and then saying it’s theirs because they’re sitting in it.

‘People can’t believe it when I tell them. They don’t understand how anyone could get away with it.’

Mr Best said:  ‘Under the law, I had a right to make this house mine so if anybody has a problem with that, they should be angry at the law, not me. 

‘I’ve done everything by the book. Nobody was cheated and I legally got what was mine.’

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