Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor and her businessman husband Anand Ahuja are at the centre of a simmering property dispute in London’s upscale Notting Hill after reports emerged that a company linked to the couple quietly acquired five flats in the residential block adjoining their £21 million (approximately Rs 270 crore) mansion.
The purchases, worth over £4 million (approximately Rs 51.4 crore), have alarmed some residents, who fear the apartments are being bought to house the couple’s domestic staff — effectively turning their homes into an annex of a billionaire household next door.
The purchases that sparked the row
According to London Centric, which first reported the story, a separate company with Kapoor and Ahuja as directors began buying up flats in the neighbouring block, Hillcrest — a 1960s residential building on Ladbroke Grove — with what residents described as the apparent intention of using them to house their staff.
The company has, as per London Centric’s investigation by journalists Jim Waterson and Polly Smythe, spent more than £4 million buying five of the 23 flats in Hillcrest, which abuts the mansion they plan to redevelop, and has also managed to purchase all of the Hillcrest garages.
The story gained wider traction after the Daily Mail reported on the dispute. Some residents have reportedly accused the company linked to the couple of buying the five flats for around £4 million (Rs 51.4 crore), and their growing ownership in the building could give it more influence over management decisions and future renovation approvals.
The Hillcrest row is part of a longer saga. Shortly after acquiring the 200-year-old west London property in 2023, Ahuja and Kapoor submitted plans to completely gut the interior — stripping out everything inside, preserving only the four outer walls, and adding a basement swimming pool along with an underground basketball court.
What followed, as per the Daily Mail, was a protracted three-year planning dispute, with objections and appeals exchanged back and forth, until the couple finally secured planning approval. They are said to have already spent £4.7 million on works at the mansion.
Neighbours speak out — and say they are afraid to
The flat purchases have unnerved residents of Hillcrest, with some using pointed language to describe the situation. One resident complained to London Centric: “We’re going from living in a community to living in servants’ quarters.”
The sense of unease runs deeper than the phrase itself. According to the Daily Mail, some residents showed the publication email exchanges between residents and Shahi Exports — Ahuja’s billionaire family’s clothing manufacturing firm — which suggested that if their concerns were published in a news article, there might be negative consequences.
Residents were quoted as saying: “We are afraid of speaking out because we don’t want to get sued by billionaires. They have already made threats after some of us spoke to the press.”
Not all neighbours share this alarm. Another resident defended the couple, describing the situation as “part and parcel of life in a city like London” and “a storm in a teacup,” maintaining that the new neighbours had acted reasonably.
The couple’s response
A representative for the couple pushed back on the characterisation of the purchases. As per the Daily Mail, Kapoor had no direct involvement in the company that purchased the flats, and they were acquired for investment purposes.
It is also worth noting, as Sunday Guardian Live reported in a fact-check published on 23 May 2026, that there is no verified evidence that Sonam Kapoor or Anand Ahuja have formally converted or designated any flats as “servants’ quarters” in a legal or official capacity. The term has largely been used in the context of resident concerns and media interpretation rather than confirmed action.
Kapoor, 40, is the daughter of actor Anil Kapoor and has received several awards for her work in Hindi films, including a National Film Award. She is married to businessman Anand Ahuja, with whom she has two sons. Ahuja is associated with Shahi Exports, one of India’s largest garment manufacturers. The couple split their time between London, Mumbai, and Delhi.
The dispute shines a light on a broader tension in some of London’s most expensive postcodes, where the arrival of ultra-high-net-worth buyers can reshape not just property prices but the social fabric of long-established residential communities — one flat at a time.