30 June 2015
Three brothers have been disqualified from acting as directors for 14 years for operating a land banking scam.
The ban was imposed on Barinua Carr Nwikpo, John Ekpobari Nwikpo and Daniel Nwikpo slong with another man, Bradley Peter Ferry, after it was deemed that the group had been selling land which was not suitable for investments.
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Operating through Tullett Brown Ltd from offices in Houndsditch in the City, the company sold land at Cheadle near Manchester, Chailey in Sussex; Billericay in Essex; and Wraysbury in Surrey. The site in Cheadle was sold to investors on the hope that it would increase in value by being developed as part of the extension of the A555 Manchester Airport Link road. Tullett Brown bought this 2 acre piece of land for £36,000 in September 2009, divided in to 28 plots and sold them to unsuspecting victims for a total of £289,000. Stockport Council is now seeking to purchase the land for the building of the airport link road and have placed a value on the land of £30,000, which is even less than Tullett Brown paid for it.
In one instance, Tullett Brown charged as much as £24,000 for a plot of land worth £590.
The company received a total of nearly £2.1 million from 106 victims for land sales between June 2009 and July 2011. The same land was originally purchased by the company at a cost of £218,000. None of the land sold by Tullett Brown was suitable for investment and the local authorities have stated that the land cannot be developed upon.
The Nwikpo brothers all signed undertakings not to act as company directors or be involved in the management of a company for 14 years each from 22 April. Bradley Peter Ferry had already given an undertaking, also for 14 years, from 24 October 2014.
Paul Titherington, a Senior Official Receiver in the Public Interest Unit, said: “The land being sold by the company was simply not suitable for investment purposes. Unfortunately the victims were persuaded to part with their money by sharp sales techniques used by the company and its brokers.”
Michael Holmes, National Custom & Self Build Association Chair, commented: “This scandal is just one of several scams that we have seen over recent years where fraudsters have preyed on the dreams of would-be self builders searching for a piece of land to build a home on.
“With affordable plots so hard to come by, the unsuspecting public can all too easily be convinced by the sophisticated sales tactics and glossy brochures of plot scammers and pay £10,000s for a piece of land with nothing more than agricultural value. People should never speculate on land without being aware of the risks – it goes back to the old idiom – if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.”
A number of other organisations have attempted to advertise plots of land that will never realistically get planning permission and PropertySCAM lists many of these ongoing land scams.
