Linley's £1m 'council flat' over the shops

Viscount Linley has bought a £1million council-style flat above a row of shops.

The 42-year-old, who is 11th in line to the throne, has surprised friends with his choice of the first-floor flat where he will live with his family.

It is an unspectacular 1930s apartment block.

But it is in the heart of Chelsea and Viscount Linley has proved on several occasions that he has a golden touch in the property market.

He sold a flat in Battersea for a £1million profit in 1999 and moved into the former apartment of his late mother, Princess Margaret, in Kensington Palace.

Shortly after Viscount Linley and his wife Serena, who have two children, Charles, five and two-year-old Margarita, also bought a £1.25 million Belgravia property.

After extensive renovation work the couple sold the property several months later for £3million without having spent a night in it.

Viscount Linley has also sold his mother's beloved Caribbean bolt-hole - Les Jolies Eaux in Mustique - for ?1.5 million He also sold the story of the sale to a magazine.

In 2002 he left Kensington Palace, which included three bedrooms, four reception rooms and accommodation for 19 members of staff after a public row about royals paying peppercorn rents.

Forced to find a home of their own again, the couple bought a £2.5 million five-bedroom townhouse in Marylebone, where they hoped to create a traditional family home.

But following a series of alarming incidents, including a stranger banging on their door in the middle of the night, the Linleys decided to move out.

According to friends, the couple did not feel that the four-storey Georgian terrace home offered enough privacy.

After considering Pimlico - where Viscount Linley's furniture showrooms are based - they set their sights on Chelsea.

Despite the profits from his property deals, added to the chain of restaurants he owns and the £7.6 million left by Princess Margaret for him and his sister, Lady Sarah Chatto, Viscount Linley still took out a mortgage on his new flat with the bankers Coutts.

The Linleys are at least assured of friendly neighbours in their home. Serena's father, property magnate Lord Petersham, has already snapped up a smaller flat in the block for £400,000.

Last year Viscount Linley took up a job with a company that builds housing estates. Famous for designing for clients such as Sir Elton John and Sir Mick Jagger, he provided a sideboard, mirror and other pieces for the Berkeley Group, which is launching a new range of "off-the-peg" homes for millionaires.

He told the Standard in a recent profile: "I'm dead common. I have always wanted to be my own man. My father (the photographer Lord Snowdon) taught me the principle of cash in, cash out. I understood early on how to make a profit from an object.

He added: "People do say, 'It's all right for you'. I get that a lot. I think in a way I have to try harder than others. You can have as many grand people attend your cocktail parties as you like but at the end of the day, if you haven't sold anything you're in the red."