Lord Mandelson's former London home back on the market

Lord Mandelson's former London home is back on the market. A 1,731 square feet sub penthouse apartment formerly owned by Lord Mandelson when he was European Union Trade Commissioner has just been put on the market, overlooking Trafalgar Square with a large wooden paneled lounge, three double bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Mandelson purchased the property in October 2003 for £884,000 selling it to a client of the buyers agent John Aitken of homeSearchLondon.com.

Aitken said, "whilst Peter was very charming, he was an extremely tough negotiator". At the time Mandelson was responsible for dealing with trade negotiations on behalf of 450 million Europeans.

Aitken goes on to say, "We have a wide range of clients, from normal people too busy to search for property to clients who have high public profiles or are celebrities, but here was a professional negotiator of the very highest caliber. Peter and his advisors thought the property was worth £1.5m, I knew I would have my work cut out as my client had placed £1.2m in our lawyers escrow account to fund the purchase, all I had to do to earn my fee was to get Peter to agree to take a £300,000 drop in price equivalent to 20% of the price when at the time the market was very strong back in April 2006."

It was reported at the time that Lord Mandelson went on to purchase a villa in Regents Park for a reputed £2.5m, but for a short time before he moved into his new home he became a tenant of the apartment in Trafalgar Square.

Aitken explains, "Getting Peter to agree to my price was like a slow game of poker, when we had meetings he would have to take important calls from various trade ministers or a Prime Minister of some country or other, so he was always going into another room to take these calls, meetings could drag on for some time, it took me months to clinch the deal at £1.2m and even then I had to agree to let Peter rent the apartment from us whilst he prepared to move, he was though the perfect tenant."

The property is currently on the market through Horne & Harvey, 23a St James’s Street, SW1A 1HA, for £1.75m.