A mother living in writer Agatha Christie’s old house has become the victim of a real-life crime conspiracy after a fraudster conned her out of £20,000.
Landlady Zohreh Majidian, 60, from Sunningdale, Berkshire was put through a living hell by a high-life fraudster who rented the flat she owned after Christie’s former home was converted into luxury flats.
With a fleet of luxury cars including two Porsches, a Land Rover and a Mercedes, Permjit Sagoo – dubbed the ‘millionaire conman’ – convinced his landlady that he earned £177,000 a year as a wealthy businessman and would be a suitable executive tenant.
However, the 58-year-old moved into the apartment and lived there for 16 months, while failing to pay a single penny in rent.
As she tried to have him evicted, Sagoo then sued Ms Majidian for £50,000 for alleged harassment.
The fraudster was finally jailed for more than nine years this week, with a judge telling his victim he thought it highly unlikely she will ever get her money back.
Landlady Zohreh Majidian, 60, from Sunningdale was put through a living hell by a high-life fraudster who rented the flat she owned after Christie’s former home was converted into luxury flats
Permjit Sagoo, 58, was a serial fraudster and was this week jailed for more than nine years
Iranian-born Ms Majidian bought two flats in The Styles in 2016, – one of which she began renting out from November 2021, in part to support her only daughter who was going to university.
However, in October 2022 and after 27 years of running her successful travel agency, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic forced Ms Majidian to shut down her company. She again decided to rent out the flat with the intention of supplementing her income.
She met a man she thought was ‘Paul Singh’ – but was in fact Sagoo – in August 2022 after she asked her estate agent to find a tenant for the flat, which was previously purchased in 1910 by famous crime novelist Agatha Christie and has since been converted into plush flats.
Her estate agent then introduced her to Sagoo, who claimed he was a director of a real company, South Parade Properties Ltd.
The fraudster then drove to Sunningdale to meet the mother for an interview.
‘He arrived in a gleaming Porsche, wearing carefully selected expensive casual attire, with the confident relaxed attitude of an upright wealthy man,’ Ms Majidian said.
‘He told me that he was only renting a property as he was in the process of buying a property for himself worth £3 million. He said he only had one child and that he wanted to rent a property in Ascot so he could stay close to his son and see him every other weekend.
‘I genuinely believed him as he came across as a wealthy and a genuine man. Estate agents also confirmed they had received documents to confirm his income and employment status.’
Iranian-born Ms Majidian bought two flats in The Styles (pictured) in 2016, – one of which she began renting out from November 2021, in part to support her only daughter who was going to university
Having successfully faked his way through estate agent checking procedures, Sagoo then moved into Ms Majidian’s flat at Styles under the name of Paul Singh on August 26, 2022 – and paid the rent on time for the first four months.
However, from November 2022, Sagoo stopped paying and alarm bells began ringing in Ms Majidian’s head.
‘When I didn’t receive my December payment, I contacted the estate agents, who told me Singh informed them that no-one in his company got paid and that he was trying to sort it out.
‘My instinct told me something was not right as he claimed to be earning £177,000 a year – why would he need to wait for his monthly salary to pay the rent?’
On January 5, 2023, having still not received any payment for living in her flat, Ms Majidian served Sagoo with a two-months notice, asking him to vacate the property during that time – but he simply ignored the order and remained in the flat.
A month later, she began legal proceedings against him, only for him to issue a counterclaim for harassment for £10,000.
Ms Majidian said: ‘My solicitors at the time told me to just pay him £10,000 as it would actually be quicker and less expensive than taking him to court.
‘However, after I told him that I would pay him, he raised his demands from £10,000 to £50,000.’
The situation immediately put her under enormous financial pressure – forcing her to put her Hampshire home on sale and move back into the second property she owned at Styles, a one bedroom flat that sat right across from the one Sagoo lived in rent free.
‘This meant my daughter no longer had a room, or even a bed, and I barely saw her for a year,’ said Ms Majidian.
From February 2023, when she was forced to live next to Sagoo at Styles, Ms Majidian claimed he flaunted his riches, threw lavish and noisy parties and wrote bher menacing emails.
‘He repeatedly called me ‘delusional’, as a result of which I genuinely started to believe I was imagining things,’ she said.
‘This affected all areas of my life, until I lost confidence in myself and my abilities. After a period of constant strain, I stopped taking care of myself and my health deteriorated.’
Menawhile, Sagoo was being chased by bailiffs for finance agreements on expensive cars which he never fulfilled – making calls to the motor companies’ finance departments to tell them where to find him.
Sagoo stopped paying his rent after four months and, when Ms Majidian tried to evict him, sued her for harassment
‘There were frequent visits by teams of police officers, bailiffs agents and High Court Enforcement Officers, none of whom he opened the door to – which normally meant they try contacting me’, she said
‘I wanted to tell them, if you are looking for that b*****d, this is where he lives, it is my property and you can come get him.’
She added: ‘He thought I’m just a foreign little woman and he just thought he could get one over me. That’s how he saw me. Well, he definitely made a mistake.’
Ms Majidian later learned Sagoo had been impersonating real business owners under the name Paul Singh, to secure finance agreements on expensive cars – including a Porsche, a BMW, and a Land Rover – which cost up to £140,000.
Additionally to defrauding Ms Majidian, a judge sitting at Reading Crown Court last week also heard that Sagoo has been defrauding individuals and companies for more than 20 years, taking on the identity of innocent company directors to secure finance agreements on the expensive cars, mobile phones – more than 200 of them – along with properties.
He also served time in prison for conning a string of wealthy victims – including fellow parents at his children’s private schools such as Guildford High – into investing in non-existent property ventures.
In July 2023, Sagoo was arrested, and Ms Majidian was invited to the police station to give a statement.
Sagoo, who had been in and out of police custody, was thrown in jail pending his sentencing when Judge Emma Nott jailed him for nine years and two months’ for numerous counts of fraud by false representation today.
Judge Nott ordered Sagoo to pay Ms Majidian £20,000 in compensation after she sent him to jail.
The judge told him: ‘If you have any money, I don’t see why Ms Majidian should suffer the £20,000 loss that she suffered to get you out of her property and to deal with your malicious harassment claim.’
Turning to the victim at the end of the hearing, Judge Nott said: ‘Even though I doubt you will ever see this money, I want to give you every chance.’
