A multimillion pound Portuguese holiday resort that TV hosts Ant and Dec paid nearly £2.5million each for has fallen into disrepair after the owners went bust.
The TV duo invested more than two million pound a piece for neighbouring properties at The Keys complex on Portugal’s Algarve in 2015.
Fellow ITV presenter Phillip Schofield paid £1.5million for his holiday home there, with all three celebrities expecting plush villas boasting rooftop pools and their own private bars, after falling in love with the area.
But after the developers accumulated millions in debt, the firm went into administration last year, leaving the resort empty, unfinished and the investors out of pocket.
The complex, which neighbours the upmarket resort of Quinta do Lago, has been pictured derelict, with swimming pools full of rubbish, incomplete building work and palm trees scorched in the hot summer sun.
Luxury villas owned by celebrities Ant, Dec and Phillip Schofield are pictured behind a wire fence, with the grass scorched brown and the buildings semi-derelict
Derelict: The inside of one of the ‘luxury’ villas at The Keys on the Portuguese coast is pictured in ruins a year after it was revealed the firm building them had gone bust
A luxury development called The Keys in the Algarve, Portugal, has gone bust, leaving celebrity investors Ant McPartlin, Dec Donnelly and Phillip Schofield potentially out of pocket
Abandoned: Roads through the ghost resort run between the empty villas and un-maintained gardens
TV hosts Ant and Dec invested £2.5million each, while ITV presenter Phillip Schofield put £1.5million into the project
Ant and Dec have been forced to draft in lawyers in a bid to retrieve some of their seven-figure investment, with sources claiming they want their hefty deposits back plus an extra £430,000 each, reports The Mirror.
Pictured: Ant and Dec in London in May this year
Speaking to MailOnline this time last year, a friend of the I’m A Celeb hosts, said: ‘It’s been a nightmare for them.
‘On top of all that Ant has gone through in the past 12 months, what with splitting up with Lisa and the drink-driving case, he has had this to contend with.
‘It’s devastating for both stars to maybe lose their villas in such a special place – it was meant to be a perfect bolthole for them.
‘They finally bought in Portugal after years of returning for holidays in the resort which is now really popular with Brits abroad. They loved it for the golf and celebrated Dec’s 40th there.
‘Ant’s place would have been one of the most attractive homes on the complex as he’d hired an interior designer to turn it into his dream holiday destination, with pools on the roof and on the ground floor.
‘The developers went bankrupt in December two years ago but it’s really starting to hit home now that they’ve had to move everything out. They’re totally gutted.’
Publicly available documents uncovered last year showed the pair, listed under their full names – Anthony David McPartlin and Declan Joseph Donnelly, with addresses in Chiswick, west London – are owed vast sums.
Ant and Dec have instructed lawyers in a bid to retrieve their seven-figure investment after The Keys went bust this time last year
The Keys reportedly owes millions to a Portuguese government bank after going into administration in August last year
Bankrupt luxury development called The Keys where Ant, Dec and Phillip Schofield lost millions in Algarve, Portugal
A sign for The Keys shows plush swimming pools with sleek white villas, while the properties are left abandoned and plants scorched and overgrown
The Keys Resort, near the exclusive at Quinta do Lago golf course, went into liquidation last August owing £250million to Caixa Geral de Depositos, the Portuguese state-owned bank.
Developers Birchview Imobiliaria, which were declared insolvent in May 2017, claim the bank was wrong to pull its support.
Villas at The Keys cost anything from £3.7million. The ones Ant and Dec picked were said to include two swimming pools, including a rooftop one, and a luxury basement level with a cinema, bar, butler’s kitchen and staff quarters.
Schofield’s home a few door down was said to be an Art Deco-inspired six-bed ‘Bel Air’ villa with a cathedral-height atrium and personal lift to a sky garden.
The swimming pool at one of The Keys’s properties is pictured almost empty with a small amount of green water and rubbish floating in the bottom
The resort used to look like this (pictured in 2015) but has fallen into disrepair after the developer went bust last year
The villas, at the exclusive Keys resort on the Algarve, near the Quinta do Lago golf course, had private pools, sprawling grounds and their own bar areas
Inside: The interior of one of the luxury villas at The Keys is pictured before workers left and the development went bust