Claremont should have passed to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg on his mother's death in 1922, but because he had served as a German general in the First World War, the British government disallowed the inheritance. Claremont was accordingly confiscated and sold by the Public Trustee to shipping magnate Sir William Corry, director of the Cunard Line. Two years after Sir William's death in 1926, it was bought by Eugen Spier, a wealthy German financier. In 1930 the Mansion stood empty and was marked for demolition when it was bought, together with the Belvedere, the stables and of parkland, by the Governors of a south London school, later renamed Claremont School and since 1978 known as Claremont Fan Court School.