THREE-TIMES Wimbledon winner Boris Becker has saved his Mallorca mansion from being forcibly auctioned off with five minutes to spare before bidding started.
The 8.2-million-euro house measures 2,900 square metres - making it around 10 times the size of a typical family villa or about 20 times that of a large apartment - and stands on roughly a square mile of land in the Son Coll area of Artà.
It was put up for auction for a cool seven million euros, or 80 per cent of its value, after the German tennis star was found by a court to have a debt of 430,000 euros with the Mallorca-based construction company Melchor Mascaró.
Just five minutes before the villa was due to go under the hammer at the order of a Palma judge in order to settle the payment, Becker came forward with the 430,000 euros plus interest, enabling him to keep the property.
He was ordered to pay off the debt in 2012, two years after the firm filed legal action, but refused to do so since he said he had never ordered the works and that the instructions were given to carry them out by business-owner Matthias Kühn and that he would pay them once he had sold the property - although no more than 80,000 euros.
Kühn, when questioned by the judge, 'did not remember' appointing Melchor Mascaró to carry out the works, nor agreeing with them that they would be paid for once the property was sold.
He said all he had done was to put Melchor Mascaró in contact with the company through which Becker owns the villa, named Goatbridge.
Melchor Mascaró insisted it had never agreed to a price of just 80,000 euros, nor to the works being paid for after the sale of the villa, and stressed that if this had been the case, there would be something in writing to show for it.
