Reminds me of a local builder who I had a couple of run ins with, he bought a plot of land & built a beautiful large house, it would have been valued at around £600,000 So today would probably be over £1m, the house remained empty for about two years & then was knocked down, "has Northy got his come uppance & gone bust?" We thought.
Turned out that Wakefield council had sold the land to a guy who had it for about 20 years & then sold it to David North (The builder) with the money the guy retired to Australia to be with his family.
After the building was complete someone at Wakefield council found out that the land never actually belonged to them but was owned by Cambridge University.
Not sure of the outcome but I know that Northy lost shit loads of money & never built his dream home.