Lancashire Telegraph
A LAW firm in East Lancashire has been given a clean bill of health over a £700,000 loan to a suspected mortgage fraudster in the West Midlands.
Alton and Co, which has offices in Accrington and Longridge, was taken to the High Court by Birmingham-based Brook Properties Ltd over the December 2007 transaction.
Lancashire solicitor Martin Wilcock acted for Brook, which had been bought out by Saima Parveen and her husband Muhammad Irfan so they could lend £700,000 to Nisar Afzal, to prevent a property in the city’s Edgbaston district from being repossessed.
But the Alton lawyer discovered that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had placed a restraint order on the house in July 2006.
And in evidence, Mr Wilcock confirmed he had made Parveen and Irfan aware of this by letter – as well as making it clear the funds for the deal should be Brook’s alone and not connected with Afzal.
However, the couple insisted that the correspondence never reached them, as they had moved their registered office, and the matter with the SFO was not raised during a number of subsequent conversations.
The High Court heard that various parts of the loan were eventually forwarded by Brook to Afzal, so he could eventually pay the reduced mortgage charge of £648,527.
But while a charge was made in favour of Brook on the property, this was superceded by a crown court confiscation order in April 2013 – after Afzal’s brother Saghir Ahmed Afzal was jailed for 13 years for a £50million mortgage fraud.
Nisar Afzal is still wanted by the SFO on related charges and is thought to be in Pakistan. The loan paid out by Brook has never been recouped.
Rejecting Brook’s case, Mr Justice Newey said there was clear evidence Mr Wilcock had given warnings.
“Mr Wilcock was, moreover, quite explicit that the SFO restriction would ‘effectively precede’ any charge in favour of Brook and that Brook should not proceed with the proposed transaction,” he said.
