Insurers are running scared of Nicholas Hoogstraten, the tycoon has revealed.

He said lawyers were having difficulty in getting proper insurance cover because he has threatened to sue so many of them.

The property baron, who once boasted he was worth £500 million, was in court asking for more time to prepare an appeal against the freezing of his assets.

Mr Hoogstraten, 59, represented himself in the hearing at the High Court but said he would be appointing the same team who overturned his manslaughter conviction.

The tycoon from High Cross, near Framfield, was freed in December, one year into a ten-year sentence for the unlawful killing of rival Mohammed Raja.

Mr Raja was murdered shortly after suing Mr Hoogstraten for fraud in 1999. Although Mr Hoogstraten has been exonerated of the crime, civil litigation between himself and Mr Raja's family has continued.

After his release, Mr Hoogstraten successfully argued for the right to appeal against the freezing of his assets and their selling off by official sequestrators.

The appeal was due to take place this week but Mr Hoogstraten said he had been unable to pay for lawyers to represent himself and Tombstone Ltd, a company of which he is a director.

He insisted money would be raised on the back of two of Tombstone's properties in Brighton and Hove and his legal team would be ready by mid-May.

He told the court: "I know this case and I know how I can instruct solicitors and counsel and it's nowhere near as complicated as people would like to make it.

"We have detailed grounds for appeal and there are two additional grounds we are putting together.

"I do not think there are any problems in putting the legal team together.

"I can resolve these problems with the stroke of a pen."

Robert Berg, a solicitor with London firm Janes, said he had represented the tycoon in his successful criminal appeal and would happily do so again but his firm could only obtain legal insurance up to £1 million.

It would need substantially more to represent Mr Hoogstraten.

The tycoon said: "It's getting ridiculous - insurance indemnities or whatever.

"I am not concerned with indemnities and I am very happy to give whatever undertaking and Tombstone will as well.

"I know why insurers are worried about me because I said I would sue everyone involved in this case. But I have no problem with Janes.

"All the mistakes that have been made on this case have been made by solicitors in the preliminary hearings, not Janes.

"It is not their fault. In the criminal case, the lawyers responsible were on the two previous firms."

Mr Hoogstraten has accumulated fines of £3 million, rising at £50,000 a week, for not disclosing his assets. Sequestrators have meanwhile been picking apart his empire and selling properties to pay the Raja family's legal bills. Mr Hoogstraten said this amounted to the theft of his assets. He told the court: "I can't stand for any of that. The matter has been ridiculous from day one."

The Raja family, headed by eldest son Amjad, claims it is owed millions of pounds by Mr Hoogstraten. The Rajas' counsel, Peter Irvin, said they were keen for the hearing to proceed as soon as possible. Three senior judges agreed Mr Hoogstraten should be given until May 10 to prepare his case.

Lord Justice Chadwick said the decision to freeze Mr Hoogstraten's assets was taken while he was convicted of manslaughter and staying in Belmarsh prison and circumstances were now different.

The case would continue on May 10, whether or not Mr Hoogstraten had appointed anyone.