EXCLUSIVE: Interior designer, 46, says she could lose her £800,000 family home due to nightmare guest who moved in for a two-week holiday but is refusing to leave THREE MONTHS later
- Micki Hacking has been asking Marty Black to pay up or leave her five-bedroom cottage in Gloucestershire
- Ms Hacking has been letting out family home while she works in London and fears defaulting on mortgage
- Mr Black ‘exploiting the Covid crisis to stay for as long as possible’ – landing her with bills worth thousands
- Presents himself as multi-millionaire businessman but MailOnline probe raises serious questions about CV
- Have you had a similar experience? Email [email protected]
An interior designer feels ‘frustrated and powerless’ after being left stuck with a guest from hell who moved into her family home for a short holiday more than three months ago and is refusing to leave after failing to pay.
Micki Hacking, 46, has been asking Marty Black to pay up or leave her £800,000 five-bedroom cottage in Gloucestershire but he has not do so and is now boasting, ‘I’m not going anywhere’.
He is allegedly exploiting the Covid crisis to stay for as long as possible – landing her with bills worth thousands and the prospect of losing the house because she can’t pay the mortgage.
Ms Hacking has been told it could take months’ worth of ‘costly and time-consuming’ legal action to evict the 61-year-old due to Covid-related court delays, so is trying to persuade him to leave to save her from financial ruin.
She says she has been repeatedly threatened by Mr Black and feels ‘violated’ at the thought of him inside her house – which she uses as a family home but lets out for short stays when she needs to be in London for work.
Mr Black – who claims he is Ms Hacking’s tenant – sent £1 by bank transfer and then £1,300 in cash ‘as a goodwill gesture’ but still owes tens of thousands of pounds.
MailOnline has seen WhatsApp messages in which he vows to pay, but he has still not done so.
Mr Black presents himself as a multi-millionaire business mogul with interests ranging from cryptocurrency to helicopters and, somewhat ironically, lettings.
However, a MailOnline investigation today raises serious questions about the claims he has made about his business empire and career.
Micki Hacking, 46, (seen on the right with her son, Tom) has been asking Marty Black (left) to pay his bills or leave her property in Gloucestershire but he has failed to do so and is boasting, ‘I’m not going anywhere’
Mr Black is allegedly exploiting the Covid crisis to stay for as long as possible – landing her with bills worth thousands and the prospect of losing the house because she can’t pay the mortgage. Pictured is Honeysuckle House in Ewen, Gloucestershire
Ms Hacking, who has a 12-year-old son, Tom, bought Honeysuckle House in the quiet Gloucestershire hamlet of Ewen in 2016.
She spoke of her pride about the property on BBC One show Escape to the Country, which she appeared on last year.
She purchased the idyllic retreat as a family home but works in London and lets it out to holidaymakers to provide an income to support her and Tom following her divorce.
Mr Black’s actions have left her in a state of emotional turmoil and fearing for her financial future.
‘I am so stressed I can’t sleep,’ she told MailOnline. ‘He’s turned the gates off so nobody can go in and he’s been rude to the neighbours. He is a horrible man and has been abusive and threatening.
What can you do if someone overstays at a holiday home?
A holiday home owner whose guests refuse to leave or fail to pay for their stay can apply for a court order to evict them.
This process can take anything from a few weeks to several months, depending on several factors including how busy the courts are.
The legal costs for doing this can sometimes be covered by a holiday home insurance policy.
Overstaying guests at holiday lets are not covered by protections brought in during the coronavirus pandemic to protect tenants with a formal agreement to rent the property for a certain period.
In this case, the landlord must give the renter six months’ notice before starting legal action to evict them, although there are exceptions for cases including antisocial behaviour or domestic abuse.
‘I’m a single mother and I can only keep the house by letting it out to holidaymakers as a business. I’ve explained to him that I face the prospect of financial ruin due to his actions but he just doesn’t care.
‘We would now be living in the house if it wasn’t for him and would have spent Christmas and New Year there.
‘We’re now in stalemate where he gets to stay in my house and I have to deal with it until the courts allow us to evict.’
Mr Black – who adopted his name by deed poll – first booked the house for two weeks on October 16 through the holiday lettings website Character Cottages and used his credit card to pay the fee.
Towards the end of his stay he asked to extend the booking, but then said he could not pay due to cash flow issues.
‘I said that he needed to give me his home address, ID and references, but he didn’t send anything,’ Ms Hacking said.
‘He then wired through £1, which he said was to check that the bank transfer system was working.
‘That was the beginning of the biggest nightmare I have ever had. No more money ever came through.
‘I phoned him and he threatened me, saying ”you shouldn’t get on the wrong side of me” before stopping taking my calls.’
Unable to contact Mr Black, who is living with his girlfriend and a young child, Ms Hacking drove from London to Gloucester to speak to him.
‘He said ‘I’m good for the money, I’ll pay you,’ Ms Hacking said.
‘But, more than three months since Mr Black moved in, he has still not sent any further payment and is refusing her repeated requests to leave.
‘He has told me ”I’m not going anywhere” and sent me screenshots of legal pages from the government website,’ Ms Hacking said.
Rules introduced early in the Covid pandemic require landlords to give formal tenants six months’ notice before starting legal action to evict them. These protections are not available to people overstaying at holiday homes.
Ms Hacking has been told that if she chose to try and evict Mr Black it could take months’ worth of ‘costly and time-consuming’ legal action. She is trying to persuade him to leave to save her from financial ruin
Mr Black’s car parked outside the house in Ewen, Gloucestershire. He has closed the gate and is not allowing workmen to enter
Mr Black is knowledgeable about the law and has been using it to remain in the property as long as possible without paying, Ms Hacking said.
‘He knows every single thing about the law and is aware exactly what he is doing,’ she said.
MailOnline attempted to contact Mr Black at Honeysuckle House and left behind a detailed series of questions, including about the claims he has made about his business career, but is yet to receive a response
‘There’s such a backlog in the courts it’s going to take me months to get him removed.
‘He has called the police about me five times and falsely accused me of ”harassment” so not only is he crippling me financially he is also trying to manipulate the police into making me the one on the wrong side of the law.
‘This isn’t about people that can’t afford it. It’s being manipulated by people who understand everything and how to manipulate the law to benefit themselves.’
Ms Hacking has now had to pay £6,000 of legal costs and fears being unable to keep up with mortgage payments.
‘I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe in the house again – I can’t stop thinking about all the personal stuff that is in there,’ she said.
‘It is a real family home and has photographs of me and my child. He’s been in there for such a long time that he’s probably been everywhere that you can go.
‘I feel personally violated by the thought of him still being inside there.’
MailOnline contacted Black over the phone. He refused to discuss his failure to pay or anything about his business interests.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he replied when asked about his failure to pay for his stay.
He then said: ‘This is a private matter,’ before later adding, ‘print what you like I’m not bothered’.
MailOnline attempted to contact Mr Black at Honeysuckle House and left behind a detailed series of questions, including about the claims he has made about his business career, but is yet to receive a response nearly a week later.
Guest from hell’s shares in mysterious companies ‘worth hundreds of millions’, a ‘fake’ American mansion and a struck-off accountant
Unwanted guest Marty Black presents himself as a multi-millionaire businessman with business interests ranging from cryptocurrency to helicopters.
Filings on Companies House list the 61-year-old as a director of three businesses, including – somewhat ironically given his current position – a real estate agency.
However, a MailOnline investigation has raised serious questions about the claims he has made about his CV.
One of his firms, Black Air 777 Group Plc, describes its main activities as cryptocurrency, insurance and oil. Its most recent accounts on September 25 list Mr Black as the single shareholder with £75million worth of shares.
An error-strewn biography written on the website of Black Air 777 suggests the company is also involved in aviation, including providing a helicopter medical evacuation service.
Companies House records state that Mr Black is usually resident in the USA. One filing gave his address as a large mansion in Edgartown, Massachusetts. An official at the County Registry of Deeds said the house had been owned by a local law firm for several decades. ‘I have never heard of Marty Black,’ the official said
An error-strewn biography written on the website of Black Air 777 suggests the company is involved in aviation, including providing a helicopter medical evacuation service
A second company, Black Air 888, was incorporated on June 9 and describes its concerns as ‘security and commodity contracts dealing activities’.
The firm has only provided one filing – a statement of capital valuing it at £100m, with Mr Black as the only listed shareholder.
Both companies – which appear to never have been audited – are registered at Berkeley Square House, a large office block in Mayfair.
However, when MailOnline visited the building the receptionist was unable to find any records of either company being registered there.
On the Black Air 777 website, Mr Black claims to have provided aviation services to ‘the M.O.D and American Defense Agency [sic].’
However, both the Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defense agencies told MailOnline said they had no record of contracts for either of Mr Black’s companies.
The Department of Defense also confirmed they had never had dealings with a ‘Marty Black’. The MoD said they were unable to search their records under someone’s name.
MailOnline has asked Mr Black – who previously went by another name – to explain the discrepancy but he has not responded to a request for comment.
Both companies sate that Mr Black is usually resident in the USA, and one filing gives his address as a large mansion in Edgartown, Massachusetts.
An official at the County Registry of Deeds said the house had been owned by a local law firm for several decades. ‘I have never heard of Marty Black,’ the official said.
The house Mr Black stated as his home address on a booking form – where his accountant, Arif Anwar Zar, currently lives
Companies House filings name Mr Black’s accountant as Rock Audit Ltd, which is located as Beaconsfield.
The company’s owner, Arif Anwar Zar, was recently stripped of his licence by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (Acca) after it identified ‘serious deficiencies’ in his work.
The quality of his audit assessments were described as ‘unacceptably low’ and he was accused of giving ‘misleading’ information to the professional body during its investigation.
Mr Anwar attempted to have the order kept secret but his request was refused.
The accountant’s current residence, a £2.17m mansion in Beaconsfield, was listed by Mr Black as his own address when he booked Honeysuckle House.
The mansion was at the centre of a long-running High Court divorce case between Mr Zar and his ex-wife, Sofia Arif.
Ms Arif claimed Mr Zar had falsely claimed to have transferred half of the ownership of the house to his son, Raziz Rehan, in order to reduce the size of his estate that thus the money she was owed.
A judge went on to criticise Mr Zar for producing unreliable documents in an attempt to prove half the house belonged to his son and found that he was only entitled to 25% of the property.
Mr Rehan is a journalist with more than 300,000 Instagram followers who has a YouTube channel where he test drives luxury cars.
MailOnline knocked visited the house to ask Mr Zar about his relationship with Mr Black and the claims his client had made about his businesses.
Mr Zar would not answer any questions, repeating constantly that he had ‘no comment’ to make.
Questioned why Mr Black had listed his house on the booking form for Honeysuckle House, Mr Zar said, ‘You will have to ask him [Mr Black].’
The registered PO Box number for his company, Rock Audit, appeared to be a cottage that has been turned into hotel accommodation, which is presently empty.
Two of Mr Black’s companies – which appear to never have been audited – are registered at Berkeley Square House, a large office block in Mayfair
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