Couple in battle to recoup £100k they lent restaurateur
AN ELDERLY couple have gone to court to try to recover £100,000 from their retirement savings which they say they lent a family member to open a restaurant.
John and Sandra Woodrow, from Aberdare, say they lent Simon Kealy tens of thousands of pounds to finance Italian restaurant venture Sale Pepe in the St David’s shopping centre, Cardiff, in 2009.
But following a period of financial difficulty, when they claim they made several further loans to Mr Kealy, the restaurant finally closed about five years ago.
In 2014, John, 75, and Sandra, 70, won a county court judgement saying Mr Kealy owed them £97,263.92 – but they say they haven’t been able to recover a penny.
In the same year, Mr Kealy was banned from being a company director for six years for continuing to trade at another venue, The Old Post Office in St Fagans, Cardiff, while the business was insolvent.
Grandmother-of-five Sandra, who is a first cousin of Mr Kealy’s mother, said she and her husband initially lent £35,000 to help furnish Sale Pepe on the understanding it would be repaid in two to four years.
Sandra claims they made further payments of £3,200.69 and £39.691.11 on Mr Kealy’s behalf to financiers Armada Finance Plc following difficulties with repayments. They say another loan of £3,276 was made in December 2011 to redeem furniture and equipment from bailiffs that had been taken in the execution of another judgement.
John and Sandra claim it was their understanding that Simon would repay their money in full. But while two repayments of £2,500 were made in 2011 and another of £300 in 2012, they say they received no further correspondence from Simon.
They took their claim to Cardiff County Court, and in September 2014 won a judgement against Mr Kealy for £97,263.92 taking into account legal costs and interest. In the intervening years the couple say they have incurred further costs of several thousand pounds attempting to recover the full amount.
Former factory worker John said the money they loaned Mr Kealy was a combination of retirement lump sums, inheritance and savings.
“You can imagine; it’s been worry, worry, worry,” he said. “We have three children and five grandchildren and we helped him before we helped our own. We had planned for our retirement and our retirement has gone. We wanted to move from here and we wanted to enjoy ourselves.”
In response, Simon Kealy said Sandra Woodrow was made a company director prior to the couple’s initial investment, which is confirmed in Companies House records. He says he was therefore not liable to pay back any money invested in the business by another company director.