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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

SHEIK turned away by Fifth ave co-op board because too many kids

NO KIDDING: Sheik Hamad’s 15 kids were too many for the co-op board to let him buy Huguette Clark’s old units.

He’s got the dough and the pedigree — just too many damn kids for the co-op board at one of Manhattan’s toniest buildings.

Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani — prime minister of the oil-rich Persian Gulf nation of Qatar — was rejected in his $31.5 million bid for a pair of Fifth Avenue pads once owned by late eccentric heiress Huguette Clark, sources told The Post last night.

A big part of the sheik’s problem was his 15 kids, not to mention his two wives and boatload of staffers who accompanied him everywhere, sources said.

“It was just too complicated,’’ said one source at the ritzy building at 907 Fifth Ave. at 72nd Street.

There wasn’t “a chance in hell’’ of his offer being accepted, the source added.

The sudden influx of potential foreign residents — young and old — to the storied address would have been in stark contrast to the previous tenant. Clark, a doll-obsessed recluse, had spent the last 20 years of her life in local hospitals. She died in May 2011 at 104.

In addition to the kid factor, the uptight co-op board put the kibosh on Hamad’s bid — which had been backed by Clark’s estate — because it was jittery about where his money was coming from, sources said.

Board members were also concerned because, as a foreign head of state, the 52-year-old sheik couldn’t be held accountable for anything that might happen there, they said.

“He had diplomatic immunity,’’ one source noted.

The sheik — a cousin of his country’s ruler, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who lives down the block — wasn’t even granted an interview with the board before his offer was rejected the weekend just past, sources said.

The unit’s listing broker, Brown Harris Stevens, did not immediately comment.

Privately, the broker was telling other realtors last night that the offer was rejected simply because the co-op board had suddenly decided against allowing the two eighth-floor apartments to be combined.

The board, however, had previously said it was fine with such an arrangement.

NY POST

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