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Couple win bank fight
A LINTON businessman and his wife, who stood to lose their £750,000 home as well as their business, have been saved by a judgement in Cambridge County Court which has blamed the bank for their misfortunes.
Paul Turner and his wife Nikki have been living a nightmare while debts have spiralled out of their control through bank charges relating, among other things, to a Small Firms Loan Guarantee.
Mr Turner, 56, has been in the music promotion business for 35 years, managing tours at the top level in pop music. He decided to start his own company, Zenith, and in 2003, having been advised by Business Link, he put together a business plan and received a £90,000 loan from HBOS, backed by the Government's Small Firms Loan Guarantee, which means entrepreneurs do not have to put their homes on the line to borrow funding.
"Soon afterwards we got a second loan, bringing the total to £250,000," Mr Turner said, "but £68,000 of this was immediately used to repay an unsecured overdraft, even though this is against the SFLG rules.
"I was accused of threatening the bank when I discovered this, but then they offered me more money if I would give a personal guarantee on my house. As I did not have any money, I had no choice." Mr Turner says he was offered further funding from the bank but on condition that he used the services of a London-based consultancy, Quayside, whose fees, at £2,500 a month for "keeping a watching brief" drained money out of the Zenith account.
Earlier this year the manager at the bank who insisted on the Quayside involvement, and based at a Reading branch where the Zenith account had been transferred, went on sick leave and things started to get nasty for the Turners:
"We were accused of stealing the bank's money, and they just shut down our business overnight.
The manager who had insisted on the use of Quayside then popped up in the national press as a "rogue banker", and it is Mr Turner's understanding he has been "pensioned off" to avoid embarrassment.
"This is part of a huge fraud that has been buried by the bank," Mr Turner said.
"I complained to the chief executive of BOS and was promised an investigation. I was asked to supply financial information, but I could not get hold of this as I had been unable to pay my accountant.
"There were offers to repay the money owed to me by the bank, but it never appeared and neither did the promised investigation," he added.
Then, 10 days ago, having been unable to pay the mortgage on his home for several months, crunch day arrived with the court hearing in Cambridge. Mr Turner's mortgage provider is Birmingham Midshires, part of Halifax, owned by Bank of Scotland. The aim was to evict the Turners from their home.
But the judge decided in the couple's favour: "He said the case was totally inequitable and a waste of the court's time, and refused to allow us to be evicted," Mr Turner said.
"We're safe for at least six months, and the Judge said he would not allow an appeal from the other side. He read our statements and he was astounded by the case and the bank's actions, and said the matter should be sorted out and we should be refunded all the money which had been misappropriated."
A spokesman for the bank said: "We deal in a sensitive and fair way with all our customers, including those experiencing difficulties. It is obviously a very trying time for any individual caught up in managing a company experiencing financial difficulties.
"We are very well aware of the stress and concern that such circumstances can generate for our customers.
We do everything in our power to reassure customers while, at the same time, helping them to turn around their business.
"We simply cannot comment on individual circumstances. We strongly believe that we have acted throughout in a fair and responsible way."
Meanwhile, Zenith has lost most of the promising musicians in whom the company invested much of the funding it did have, and is unable to trade.
17 October 2007
A LINTON businessman and his wife, who stood to lose their £750,000 home as well as their business, have been saved by a judgement in Cambridge County Court which has blamed the bank for their misfortunes.
Paul Turner and his wife Nikki have been living a nightmare while debts have spiralled out of their control through bank charges relating, among other things, to a Small Firms Loan Guarantee.
Mr Turner, 56, has been in the music promotion business for 35 years, managing tours at the top level in pop music. He decided to start his own company, Zenith, and in 2003, having been advised by Business Link, he put together a business plan and received a £90,000 loan from HBOS, backed by the Government's Small Firms Loan Guarantee, which means entrepreneurs do not have to put their homes on the line to borrow funding.
"Soon afterwards we got a second loan, bringing the total to £250,000," Mr Turner said, "but £68,000 of this was immediately used to repay an unsecured overdraft, even though this is against the SFLG rules.
"I was accused of threatening the bank when I discovered this, but then they offered me more money if I would give a personal guarantee on my house. As I did not have any money, I had no choice." Mr Turner says he was offered further funding from the bank but on condition that he used the services of a London-based consultancy, Quayside, whose fees, at £2,500 a month for "keeping a watching brief" drained money out of the Zenith account.
Earlier this year the manager at the bank who insisted on the Quayside involvement, and based at a Reading branch where the Zenith account had been transferred, went on sick leave and things started to get nasty for the Turners:
"We were accused of stealing the bank's money, and they just shut down our business overnight.
The manager who had insisted on the use of Quayside then popped up in the national press as a "rogue banker", and it is Mr Turner's understanding he has been "pensioned off" to avoid embarrassment.
"This is part of a huge fraud that has been buried by the bank," Mr Turner said.
"I complained to the chief executive of BOS and was promised an investigation. I was asked to supply financial information, but I could not get hold of this as I had been unable to pay my accountant.
"There were offers to repay the money owed to me by the bank, but it never appeared and neither did the promised investigation," he added.
Then, 10 days ago, having been unable to pay the mortgage on his home for several months, crunch day arrived with the court hearing in Cambridge. Mr Turner's mortgage provider is Birmingham Midshires, part of Halifax, owned by Bank of Scotland. The aim was to evict the Turners from their home.
But the judge decided in the couple's favour: "He said the case was totally inequitable and a waste of the court's time, and refused to allow us to be evicted," Mr Turner said.
"We're safe for at least six months, and the Judge said he would not allow an appeal from the other side. He read our statements and he was astounded by the case and the bank's actions, and said the matter should be sorted out and we should be refunded all the money which had been misappropriated."
A spokesman for the bank said: "We deal in a sensitive and fair way with all our customers, including those experiencing difficulties. It is obviously a very trying time for any individual caught up in managing a company experiencing financial difficulties.
"We are very well aware of the stress and concern that such circumstances can generate for our customers.
We do everything in our power to reassure customers while, at the same time, helping them to turn around their business.
"We simply cannot comment on individual circumstances. We strongly believe that we have acted throughout in a fair and responsible way."
Meanwhile, Zenith has lost most of the promising musicians in whom the company invested much of the funding it did have, and is unable to trade.
17 October 2007
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