A gorgeous French Chateau located in the hills above the French Riviera has been ordered to be demolished after a 15-year court battle over the property finally came to an end. Patrick Diter bought a rundown 2,000-square-foot home on a huge parcel of land and started to expand on it. Chateau Diter, as he calls it, had been abandoned for years and regularly squatted in before he bought it. When Diter bought the property, a permit was obtained to put a small expansion onto the house. The problem is, Diter took it much further than that and over four years, the ramshackle 2,000-square-foot house grew to 32,000 square feet. Diter also put in a pool, a lake, heliports – everything you could possibly want or wish for in a property. There was only one problem – he never got the right permit for all those additions.
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A £48million mansion nestled in the hills above the French Riviera must be demolished after a court ruling brought a 15-year legal standoff to an end.
Property tycoon Patrick Diter built a 32,000 sq ft Italianate palace, dubbed Chateau Diter , on the site of what was once a modest 2,000 sq ft farmhouse without first obtaining planning permission.
The building work started in 2005 and in 2009 a group of disgruntled neighbours, led by British millionaires Stephen and Caroline Butt, took Mr Diter to court, deciding the building frenzy had to stop .
In 2015 an appeal court in Aix-en-Provence ruled that the chateau must be demolished. Only the small original house was spared.
Take your cue: how signs can bring the joy back to Zoom meetings
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Ever zoned out during a Zoom? Found yourself inadvertently butting in and interrupting others or being spoken over constantly?
These scenarios are commonplace in the new working at home environment, along with children demanding attention, cats jumping on desks and noisy washing machines. Video meetings can be stressful and leave people feeling frustrated, but help is at hand – from a beach lifeguard who promises to keep our video heads above water.
A business coach has delved into his experience as a volunteer lifeguard in Cornwall to develop a basic sign language designed to improve employees’ experience of video meetings. Coupled with a code of conduct, Paul Hills believes he has devised a way of ensuring video meetings are run with a relaxed and professional modus operandi.