£125,000 fine for infamous landlord

A court has told a multi-millionaire landlord he must pay £125,000 after a 10-year campaign of abuse against a local council.

Last year Fergus Wilson, 72, was the subject of a life-time injunction banning him from contacting his local Ashford Borough Council.

Wilson can now only contact staff or councillors through a named legal advisor.

Last year’s High Court injunction case heard that Wilson repeatedly told councillors to kill themselves. The council's representative presented to the court a file of 454 pieces of correspondence sent by Wilson to council officials in the space of just over four years, between February 2016 and July 2020.

Council representatives at the time said Wilson's behaviour had made workers feel harassed and intimidated, with some receiving emails from him on a daily basis. Some officers were reportedly reduced to tears.

Now in a new decision the High Court has ruled that Wilson must pay £125,000 by 4pm on May 17 - however this is merely a part payment while the full costs are assessed.

Wilson says he intends to appeal.

Wilson and his wife Judith managed many hundreds of their own properties - all in and around Kent - until the year 2000, at which point they instructed agents.

In the late 2010s they said they started selling some of their buy to lets and in late 2018, during a court appearance over a dispute with a disabled tenant, Judith Wilson said she still had a portfolio of some 300 units around Maidstone.

In June 2019 the business online publication Insider Media put the couple’s joint wealth at around £140m.

It is reported that the couple have now sold the last of their properties.

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