UK Acorn Finance (Mortgages)

Roger Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Llwyd]

That is precisely the point. The farming community has been through a rather tortuous time in any event, in terms of income streams over the past five to seven years, so my hon. Friend’s point is absolutely correct. Farmers are more prone, but they are also in a worse position: unlike someone who loses a house and moves on, they lose absolutely everything. As I said, when they have inherited the property, as in Mr and Mrs Williams’s case, it is even sadder and worse.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the forensic way in which he has examined and researched this issue. Does he agree that UK Acorn Finance targets landowners who may be in a vulnerable financial position, offering them help and succour, although its only real purpose is to get possession of the property and make a profit out of that?

[Mr Llwyd]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. That is certainly the conclusion to which I have come, as have several other Members of Parliament with constituents who have been badly affected by these scams—I can think of a worse word than scam, but not a polite one. As my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) said, the farming community is more vulnerable than the average person, or has been.

Burges Salmon, the solicitors, had a charge on my constituents’ property for their fees, and endowment policies were assigned. There was also, interestingly, an agreement with the lender for Burges Salmon, the solicitors, to step aside should the lender wish to repossess. As director of the UK Group—they are all the same creature under these different names, hiding behind the corporate veil as some people choose to do—Mr Phillips had his name on the clients’ mortgage, making him a joint owner of the property if the clients were to die; he automatically became the sole owner by survivorship. I think that is hugely unusual.

There were broken promises of funding by Peter Williams and UK Group, upsetting key suppliers to clients, and particularly feed merchants. In effect, they were closing the farm and income stream down, making it impossible for Mr and Mrs Williams to pay the mortgage. That must be the most obvious breach of fiduciary duty there could possibly be, and I hope that the Government—I see that the Minister is listening intently—will be able to do something about this matter. Those are the main points on the way that those involved go about their business.

To my knowledge, there are 44 different complainants, all of whom had complained to Avon and Somerset police by June 2013. The victims are seriously concerned that the police allege that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by any of those involved. The victims have documentary evidence and other evidence that fraud has been committed, as I will now summarise. The police consistently refused to look at the evidence.

There have been fraudulent valuations. A number of valuations are available and in the possession of victims, with widely varying calculations for the same property over very short periods. E-mails and notes also indicate that inflated valuations were being sought by UK Acorn companies in order to lend at a supposedly 70% loan-to-value ratio—but in fact at a much higher LTV or even negative equity. Once money had been paid, minus the huge fees that were withdrawn, there was no chance of escape for the poor people who had entered into the mortgage agreements. Other brokers appear to have been involved; there are numerous companies—I will not go through them all, but they include Commercial First.

Karen Phillips of UK Group—the daughter of Mr Desmond Phillips—has admitted in a hearing in Exeter county court that she substituted execution pages of documents from one document to another. She claimed that she had done so with permission, but could not provide any proof. The above was common practice at UK Group and went alongside the planting and forgery of signatures—graphologists’ opinions have been sought and that has been proved in at least one or two cases—and deeds not being signed according to the Law of Property Act 1925. Signatures were obtained from victims and witnessed afterwards, in some cases, by people who had never met the signatory.

A number of tricks were regularly used to get loans through without proper advice and before the victim had a chance to understand properly what they were signing. That is disgraceful. There was a churning of mortgages, as I have explained, with numerous short-term mortgages. That churning was commonplace at UK Acorn Finance and the charges to be paid for those activities were not disclosed to victims before the commencement of the series of transactions.

In some documented cases, the changing of the mortgage did not provide the victim with any additional funds at all, merely adding further gross fees for the perpetrators. Surely that is fraud by misrepresentation. Evidence suggests that both the brokers and the lenders were involved in defrauding not only the borrowers, but the lenders to them and in the securitisation of the supposedly long-term documents.

Strong documentary evidence also suggests that most of the mortgages were set up to fail and that once executed, the lenders did their best to thwart the victims’ efforts to fund the repayments. The use of LPA receivers was suspect at the very least and it was the same character virtually each time. He certainly did not appear to have aimed to maximise the returns from repossessed properties, further disadvantaging victims. Des Phillips and others associated with him have purchased a considerable number of repossessed properties.