They’re just like us, celebrities: subject to the same planning laws which curtail their ambitious renovation plans,or the inconvenience of a simmering neighbourly dispute.
From Eric Clapton and Harry Styles to Sienna Miller and Liam Gallagher, here are what the stars have been up to in the world of property this year.
Property feuds
Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour locked horns with his neighbours this summer over his planning application, filed retrospectively, to build a modest green shed in the corner of his Hampstead garden.
The Hampstead Hill Garden Residents’ Association argued that the shed was “obtrusive, overbearing and significantly more visually and physically intrusive than what was originally approved or what stood there before.”
Others said that the shed was too close to the fence, claiming its foundations and surrounding landscaping were “excessive”. He was ordered to tear it down and rebuild it.
Also in Hampstead, Styles faced objections from neighbours over his plans to turn two of his properties into one sprawling mega-home.
Planning permission was granted in April,but proposals for further tweaks prompted fresh annoyance.
Two formal complaints were lodged with the council in September, with one local telling the Telegraph: “It’s sad living next to a building site all the time. The houses are constantly being snapped up by millionaires and redone. There’s less community on the street now, and some people are choosing to move away.”
In the same month, Styles also reportedly bought a fourth house on the same Hampstead street and is said to have moved his girlfriend, Zoë Kravitz, into the compound.
For Clapton, it was somebody else’s plans that were the problem. One of the musician’s neighbours in Surrey wanted to demolish their home and replace it with a new building, featuring an open-plan kitchen, dining room and living room and, controversially, an “elevated terrace”.
Clapton lodged an objection with his local council, arguing this would overlook his swimming pool and cause “a significant and unacceptable invasion” of his privacy.
“As a public figure, my privacy is both a personal and professional necessity,” he wrote.
“The property is frequently used for private meetings and media-related work that requires discretion and seclusion.
“The proposed design, particularly the elevated terraceand extensive glazing, jeopardises this essential privacy.”
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Everyone has their limit. Ant McPartlin is reportedly moving out of his £6 million south-west London home after falling out with his neighbours.
McPartlin and his wife, Anne-Marie Corbett, spent “hundreds of thousands” turning their three-storey Wimbledon house into their “dream home”, adding a swimming pool with Victorian-style changing rooms and two extensions.
But it was the couple’s garden plans, which involved felling six large trees, that made their neighbours unhappy.
Locals claimed there was “no justification” for it, putting it down to McPartlin’s “personal whim”.
McPartlin’s representative told the Standard: “Ant and Anne-Marie are not moving because of planning issues, they are moving for family reasons.”
Moving in
Liam Gallagher owns a mock-Tudor mansion near Highgate and a £4 million villa in Cannes, but in November, following the success of Oasis’ reunion tour, he was rumoured to have bought himself a new house in St John’s Wood.
According to a source, the house covers more than 8,000 square feet, with a garden, cinema room, gym, off-street parking and a separate coach house.
Its asking price was more than £11 million, but it had received a 22 per cent price cut in recent months, meaning that Gallagher may have got himself a good deal.
The Oasis frontman is not the only famous face to buy in the area: in September, Star Wars creator George Lucas purchased a £40 million St John’s Wood home in what is believed to be one of the UK’s most expensive property deals this year.
In Richmond, This Morning presenter Ben Shephard recently swapped his family home for a 300-year-old, 10-bedroom house nearby.
Shephard sold his previous home for £5.3 million, according to the Daily Mail, having bought it for £2.95 million in 2016.
The new property, which covers almost 6,000 square feet, cost £3.375 million, leaving Shephard with some pocket change.
Moving out
It’s been a year of change for Graham Norton, who put two of his homes on the market in quick succession. “We’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years and I finally feel brave enough to make a huge change to my life,” he told The Sunday Times earlier this year.
At the end of April, he put his Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse in Wapping on the market for £4.95 million. Covering 3,701 square feet, the property has five bedrooms and an adjoining former warehouse to the rear, which has been converted into a lounge and reception area with views of the Thames.
The property is no longer listed online, but a sale has not yet been logged on the Land Registry, so it is unclear whether Norton’s house has sold.
Norton’s Manhattan mews house, listed in May, has found a buyer, though.
The two-bedroom property, which he bought in 2002 from Claudia Schiffer, sold for $5.3 million (£3.98m) in September — $295,000 (£221,571) less than its asking price.
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Sienna Miller is also selling her thatched roofed Buckinghamshire “sanctuary”, which she bought in 2008.
Miller refurbished the house, which included fitting a pink kitchen with a large Lacanche range cooker and original Crittall doors leading onto the garden.
The picture-perfect property covers almost 2,000 square feet across two floors, with five bedrooms and a separate studio outside, set up as guest accommodation.
It was listed for £1.95 million with Savills in October and remains on the market.
Meanwhile, Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia Rossi, caused a stir when they put the Cotswold farmhouse that they had bought less than a year earlier on the market in August.
The couple moved into the property in November last year, in the same week as the US election, and announced that they planned to stay permanently.
The six-bedroom house, which sits in 43 acres of land, quickly found a buyer. It reportedly sold for £24 million, slightly above its £22.5 million asking price.
In its place, DeGeneres and Rossi bought an award-winning minimalist house in the same area, designed by its architects to “redefine rural modern living”. Built around a Japanese-inspired gravel garden, it covers 11,000 square feet, with industrial-luxe interiors and 100 acres of grounds.
Other famous faces to sell up this year include snooker player Ronnie O’Sullivan and Laila Rouass, who put their Woodford Green home on the market for £2 million in March after separating last year.
Baroness Michelle Mone sold her Belgravia townhouse to 20-year-old racing car driver Freddie Tomlinson for £17.8 million — £5 million under its asking price.
The 6,000-square-foot Georgian property has a 25-metre basement pool, jacuzzi, steam room, cinema room, wine cellar and gym.
In October, a company led by Mone’s husband, Doug Barrowman, was ordered by the High Court to repay £122 million for supplying faulty PPE gowns to the government during the pandemic this year, which had earned the family tens of millions of pounds.
Barrowman criticised the High Court judgment, saying documentation is now available that proves the gowns were properly sterilised.
Oh, and Katherine Ryan’s Crouch End flat, dubbed “The Museum of Katherine Ryan”, is currently for sale for £825,000.
Ryan, who moved to Chipping Barnet with her family in 2019, has rented out the three-bedroom flat for a “very fair rental rate”, but has now decided to part with her first-ever property purchase.
“So many happy memories,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “TAKE ME BACK.”
Given that her home now has a vast open-plan living space, garden and a swimming pool, we’re not so sure she means that.
What a year. What will 2026 bring?
