London Property Investments (U.K) Limited (LPI) arranged mortgages while NPI Holdings Limited (NPI) bought properties and rented them back to the sellers, both without FCA authorisation. Daniel Stevens, the director of LPI and NPI, and his father, Tony Stevens, were also found liable.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Fancourt described these breaches as ‘serious contraventions, conducted over an extended period, involving high levels of culpability including deception of the consumers and the lenders, and which took advantage of the consumers’ vulnerability’.
The 4 defendants are ordered to pay around £4 million to the FCA. This is an important next step in the case. The FCA will need to recover funds before any compensation can be paid to affected individuals.
LPI is required to remove restrictions registered against the titles of 4 properties. These restrictions were used to force individuals to pay exorbitant fees to LPI. If these fees were not paid, then the individual could not sell or re-mortgage their property. In some cases, this trapped individuals into high-interest bridging loans.
Steve Smart, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: ‘These sham brokers preyed on vulnerable people who were struggling financially and trapped them with exorbitant fees.
‘The defendants used a smokescreen of deception which cost consumers and lenders dearly. This was a complex case, but the ruling shows that these were serious breaches of our rules. It is only right that we can now pursue LPI, NPI, Daniel and Tony Stevens to compensate for the losses they caused the victims.’