Filings show Aave founder Stani Kulechov purchased £22M Victorian mansion in Notting Hill

Crypto entrepreneur Stani Kulechov has purchased a mansion in London’s Notting Hill district for £22 million, or about $30 million, one of the priciest residential deals in the city over the past year. 

According to a Tuesday report by Bloomberg, the DeFi lending platform Aave founder secured the property in November for about £2 million below the guide price. The home is a Victorian property spread over five floors and with wide views over the Notting Hill neighborhood.

The acquisition comes as London’s high-end housing market struggles with falling prices, lower transaction volumes, and tax-driven headwinds that have affected properties in the “wealthy” side of London since November.

Kulechov has previously voiced support for the UK as a potential region ripe for crypto innovation. He welcomed guidance from the UK tax authority HM Revenue and Customs, indicating that locking digital assets as collateral in DeFi lending would not in itself count as a taxable event.

Aave founder buys property in struggling UK real estate market

Kulechov is a Russian-born Finnish lawyer who founded the decentralized finance platform Aave in 2017, originally under the name ETHLend. The protocol has grown into one of the largest DeFi lending markets, with more than $50 billion in assets deposited in its pools. 

The transaction was made during a period that economists had dubbed difficult for London’s luxury housing sector. The market has been pressured by tax changes introduced under the Labour government, including higher stamp duties and the removal of a preferential tax regime previously used by wealthy foreign residents. 

According to researchers at LonRes, home sales above £5 million in December dropped by 40% compared with the same month a year earlier. Moreover, the top of the market is expected to face tough times ahead, as new levies are expected to take effect in 2028. That backdrop has led to cautious pricing, longer marketing periods, and more frequent discounts from asking prices in prime districts.

Even so, West London neighborhoods have hosted several of the year’s most notable purchases. Some areas, such as Holland Park and Notting Hill, are still attracting high-value transactions, with the spot where Kulechov bought a house “holding up the strongest” for price growth among prime central London districts in the final quarter of the year.

The UK Office for National Statistics data shows there were deeper price corrections in the capital’s most expensive boroughs, including a 4.6% annual drop in central London prices, following a 4.3% fall in October. 

The steepest declines appeared in areas traditionally favored by international buyers, with average prices in Westminster dropping 15.5% over the year to £866,000. In Kensington and Chelsea, prices dropped 16.3% to an average of £1.19 million. 

Economists believe some overseas owners have exited due to a drop in new foreign demand following the government’s revision of “non-dom” tax rules. On the other hand, outer London boroughs like Havering and Bromley saw annual price increases of 5.2% and 6% respectively. 

Uptick in values of properties in outer districts softened the citywide picture, yet London’s overall average house price still slipped 1.2% in the year to November, settling near £553,000. That followed a 2.6% annual decline recorded in October.

Tax speculation dampens high-end house demand 

Towards the end of January, property portal Zoopla’s executive Richard Donnell said the speculation ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ November Budget “hit demand and market activity at the upper end of the housing market”. Reeves later announced a council tax surcharge starting in April 2028 for homes valued above £2 million, most of which are in London and the South East.

In a BBC poll of 1,000 people aged 25 to 45 in Greater London, 42% said they may be forced to leave the city despite not wanting to move. Nearly two-thirds of young respondents said they are using some form of borrowing to meet housing costs.

Looking at the rest of the UK, the National House Building Council reported 115,350 new homes registered for construction in 2025, up 11% from 103,669 in 2024. Private sector registrations increased 12% year-on-year to 75,227. The rental and affordable housing segment recorded a 10% gain, with 40,123 homes registered, up from 36,404 a year earlier. 

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