Fabregas ‘may have been sold £5m flat on cheap by his girlfriend’

Couple: Cesc Fabregas bought the flat from Daniella Semaan in 2013
Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

Chelsea star Cesc Fabregas may have wrongly been sold a luxury home in Belgravia on the cheap by his girlfriend, a judge has said.

The Spanish midfielder bought the apartment from Daniella Semaan for £5.475 million in 2013 when she was ordered to sell it as part of her divorce from ex-husband Elie Taktouk.

But Mr Taktouk, 40, insists it was worth much more and she sold it at a knockdown price to her new partner.

At a High Court hearing yesterday, Lady Justice Gloster gave Mr Taktouk permission to fight his case in the Court of Appeal. “Our evidence is that it was worth much more — more than £6 million — and that was on the basis of expert evidence”, said his barrister Nicholas Davidson QC.

The legal wrangling began in 2013 when, during divorce proceedings, Mr Justice Coleridge ordered that Ms Semaan, 40, sell the house on the couple’s behalf. She was told to sell at the “best reasonable price” and to appoint agents to market it. However, she opted for a private sale to Fabregas, 28, who she had left Mr Taktouk for.

The footballer was at the time playing for Barcelona, but rumours were rife that he was set to return to the Premier League and he made a £30 million switch to Chelsea in June 2014.

Mr Taktouk, a Lebanese businessman, tried but failed to block Fabregas’s purchase, and Ms Semaan promptly went ahead with the sale.

Mr Davidson admitted the case was “filled with bitterness” but said Mr Taktouk is determined to pursue his claim that the sale price was too low.

Lady Justice Gloster told Mr Taktouk: “All Mr Justice Coleridge was concerned with was allowing the sale to proceed, as distinct from approving the sale of the property at the price Fabregas’s company was going to pay.

“It is arguable that, however one reads the judgment of Mr Justice Coleridge, he did not make an express finding that the price for the intended sale was the best price reasonably achievable.”

Mr Taktouk was told to pay Ms Semaan £60,000 in outstanding costs as a condition of the appeal going ahead.

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