Artist Paola Minekov, 46, grew up in Bulgaria, and her experience of living there under Communism until the age of nine has drastically influenced her current views on property and ownership.
“Despite working in the creative industries, owning property has always felt incredibly important to me,” she says. “Private ownership was restricted for decades, and I think that legacy shaped my mindset.”
Along with her husband, a software engineer, she now owns four flats and houses in the UK, the combined value of which is between £1.3m and £1.5m.
“[When I was young], a property couldn’t just be bought; you had to go on a waiting list that could last years. Apart from artists, such as my father, people weren’t allowed to own more than one property. Artists were allowed two properties as one was allowed to be used as their studio.”
The Communist era in Bulgaria lasted from 1944 to 1989, during which private property ownership was heavily restricted, including size limits, and ownership was often a very slow process.
Artists and those working in the creative industries were considered important in building propaganda for Communism. Still, the authorities would have checked that their second property was used as a studio. “It was a strange environment for artists to work in.”
Like many families in Bulgaria, Paola lived in a flat in the capital, Sofia. “[Here], and in the main cities, there were no houses; it was all flats. Although people did live in houses outside the city,” she says.
“People also couldn’t move from one place to another very easily. It was like citizenship is now and my father could only move to Sofia because my mother was from Sofia. The restrictions ended when I was nine, and things slowly changed. There was a ‘soft revolution’.”
During this time, those who had had their property and land seized had it given back. “This has influenced my perspective; [with property] even in drastic circumstances, once the cycle is over, you will gain a level of ownership back, even after 40 years,” she says.
“It gives you security. Both my parents had land taken away from them and it was given back eventually. Not 100 per cent but most of it came back to them after 40 years. It’s a long period to wait, and for things to work out, but land and property are a physical thing.”
Paola moved to Israel when she was 18 and then to the Netherlands, where she met her now-husband. In 2008, the couple decided to move to London, where they rented for a couple of years before buying their first property in 2011 – a two-bedroom, share-of-freehold flat in Herne Hill.
“We paid £335,000 for it and it doubled in value in the first few years,” says Paola. “My husband is Dutch, and culturally, there’s much more acceptance of long-term renting in the Netherlands. But for me, renting never felt secure enough.”
In 2014, they took £100,000 of equity out of this flat and used it as a deposit to buy a three-bedroom house in East Croydon as a buy-to-let for £320,000.
“[The Croydon house] is freehold which is important to me and there is parking. It went up £100,000 the year after we bought it as well,” says Paola.
In 2017, the couple bought a second investment property, a two-bedroom flat in Abbey Wood, for £260,000, using money gifted to them by Paola’s mother from the proceeds of a property that had been returned to her and then sold after the Communist era.
The couple and their two children moved from their original Herne Hill flat three years ago, buying a £550,000, five-bedroom house in Reading, where they now live. They had nearly paid off the mortgage on their Herne Hill flat, so, again, they used the equity from that to put down a deposit on their Reading home. They kept the flat and receive £2,500 a month in rent from it.
The East Croydon house is currently rented out for £1,850 a month.
Finally, the Abbey Wood property is rented out for £1,350 a month. All rental properties are in their personal names, tenanted and in good condition, but Paola says that recent tax and regulation changes have made her reevaluate things:
“No wonder landlords are thinking of selling up – I have thought about selling up but felt strongly that I didn’t want to do this with my Herne Hill home.”
While she believes some of the changes coming in with the Renters Reform Act are necessary, “as there are landlords that do questionable things”, she thinks smaller landlords such as herself are being targeted.
“It’s not just Labour, [not being able to claim mortgage interest as an expense] is unfair. Everything about being a landlord is treated like a business, except the expenses. You can’t expense mortgage fees, and it doesn’t come into our profits.”
The plan is to try and keep the properties for when her two children are older. “I will try to keep them, but I don’t know if we will buy any more. Some years I make a profit and some years I don’t, if we do a lot of work.”
The crossover between Paola’s love of art and property has led her to co-found Creations Atelier, which runs networking events in London that connect artists with property experts, developers, and architects. While it might not be the easiest time to be a small landlord, she remains firm in her belief of its merits. “Property represents security, stability and long-term safety to me.”
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