A man says his £3m Grade II-listed mansion under a Heathrow flight path is being damaged by low-flying planes.
Daljit Bhail, 54, has lived in the sprawling four-acre Georgian property, next to the south runway of terminal five, for almost 25 years after buying it for £600,000.
He says low-flying planes over the past three years have caused “vortex damage” - where large gusts of wind from planes have smashed into the buildings.
Daljit also believes the 18th-century 28-room house has been damaged by ice falling off planes and hitting the property - a claim denied by Heathrow Airport.
Man claims house being destroyed by planes
The property investor, from Hounslow, London, said: “It's just madness how they treat a listed building and the planes wake me and guests up at 3am."
Daljit claims blue ice - frozen sewage leaked mid-flight from plane toilets - smashed a glass lantern just outside the house, which he rents on Airbnb.
And a vortex damaged the roofing of the property once owned by the founder of the SAS.
He says Heathrow has “abandoned” the house – despite initially agreeing to fix the damage - a claim Heathrow Airport deny.
It is understood the airport paid for a contractor to visit to do repair work for the vortex damage, but they were unable to continue due to a disagreement with Daljit.
Daljit said: “It's a stand-off - they sent an assessor out who confirmed the house had been hit by a vortex strike, and said they would nail down the tiles but then they said they couldn’t as it’s a listed building.”
Daljit said Heathrow then agreed to have a workman come out to secure the roof in April – but says he did a “shoddy job” and left nails everywhere as well as putting his foot through the ceiling.
Pictures and videos show large nails sticking out of the walls in the loft.
Since then, Daljit says there has been scaffolding left for five months, and Heathrow hasn’t sent anyone else back to finish the job.
"The scaffolding now has ivy growing up it it's been there so long," he said.
He says it is also costing him money, as he lets out the property on Airbnb, but can't attract guests due to safety concerns and scaffolding.
Daljit said: “Sometimes there is less than a minute gap between planes flying overhead.
"It’s not just the damage - it’s really loud and they shouldn’t be flying that low.
“If ice can fall off and go through a double screen window, which it has, what happens if someone is underneath?
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“It’s extremely dangerous!”
A Heathrow spokesperson said: "We have well-established programmes to protect local buildings from the impacts of airport operations, including preventative works and noise insulation.
"In the rare cases where a property is damaged, we work with specialist contractors who will assess the most suitable repair, at no cost to the resident.”
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