UK slaps ‘largest’ fine on Indian-origin trader
GURPREET SINGH CHADDA HAD PROVIDED FALSE AND MISLEADING INFORMATION WHILE ENTERING INTO REAL ESTATE DEALS WITH CLIENTS
Britain’s finance officials have levied a nearly £10,00,000fine and a 13-year bankruptcy restriction order on an Indianorigin trader for providing false and misleading information while entering into real estate agreements with clients.
Based in Walsall, West Midlands, Gurpreet Singh Chadda, 34, was investigated by a specialist team of the Insolvency Service for breaching the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) regulations relating to ‘sale and rent back’ (SRB) agreements.
Chadda was the sole trader using the names Red2Black Homes and B&L Homes. The investigation uncovered that between July 2009 and January 2010, he induced property owners experiencing financial difficulties to enter into SRB agreements by providing them with false and misleading information and concealing his own personal gain.
An SRB agreement is one where a home owner sells their home and then rents it back from the arranger to be able to carry on living in the home.
Often people who sell their homes in this way are vulnerable as they are in financial difficulty and need to raise money to pay mortgage arrears and / or avoid repossession of their homes.
The FCA fined Chadda £9,45,277 and banned him from working in the financial services industry as a result of his significant failings. This was the largest ever FCA fine for a sole trader in a retail business.
In levying the fine, the FCA believed that Mr Chadda received £695,277 from arranging 7 SRB agreements and incorporated this amount in the fine, official sources said here on Monday.
Chadda’s widespread failings included deliberately misleading the sellers of at least six of the seven properties by purporting to be the purchaser when in fact the purchasers were third parties unknown to the sellers.
Investigators found that he also falsely informed the sellers that valuations were or had been determined by independent valuers, and that he misled the sellers regarding the true market value of their properties.