Member Article

Roma Finance resolves family feud with buyout bridge

Roma Finance, the Manchester-based specialist bridging lender, were able to resolve a difficult and complex case involving three generations of a family and a dispute with a major UK clearing bank lasting several years.

The case was introduced by John Waddicker at Positive Bridging Finance. Previously other lenders had not been able to assist the family, but Roma Finance agreed to take a closer look to see if they could help.

It all started with the client’ grandfather selling his son, the client’s father, a residential investment property for £500,000 in 2006. The son, believing there would be no issues with the purchase, didn’t carry out any searches and took out a mortgage with a major UK clearing bank for £300,000. Almost immediately after the sale went through, the grandfather disappeared, leaving our client’s father with a property which didn’t have planning consent for residential occupation.

After several years of trying unsuccessfully to sort out the planning, our clients’ father agreed a sale without planning for £380,000. However, the sale fell through because the bank refused to provide a redemption figure as they were trying to sell their loan book to another major UK bank. The father, by now completely disgruntled stopped paying his mortgage. In response, his bank account was frozen which resulted in him eventually becoming bankrupt.

Following a lengthy complaint procedure which went as far as the bank’s CEO, the father reached an agreement whereby he could sell the property for £135,000 and release himself from any further obligations. In addition, he had also reached an agreement with the local planning department to obtain change of use to residential. Our clients, the father’s sons, committed their life savings of £15,000 as part of the transaction. Roma Finance was able to confirm the story was genuine, agreed to fund £120,000 towards the sons’ purchase and a further advance once residential planning consent had been obtained.

Once the change of use had been obtained, the clients paid off Roma’s bridging loan with a buy to let mortgage through another High Street bank.

Scott Marshall, director at Roma Finance, commented: “By meeting the client we were able to get a complete picture of what had happened from the beginning of the father’s journey with this particular property. We made sure we took the time to understand each step and why events had turned out the way they did. This is the Roma Finance way. Despite the many difficulties encountered, we were able to confirm the family’s story and provide a bridging loan for them to release the family from the relationship with their bank, whose actions were beyond reproach.”

John Waddicker, Director at Positive Bridging Finance, said: “This was one of the earliest cases we gave to Roma and it really demonstrates their pro-active approach. They do what they say they are going to do, they do it quickly and by meeting the client, they were able to get under the skin of this complex transaction. Following this and other successful payouts, they’re now a preferred lender of ours. I can see Roma growing from strength to strength in this marketplace. Scott and the Roma Finance team have a great pedigree which gives me a good deal of confidence in them.”

Because of the nature of this particular case, the client has requested anonymity, but one of the sons commented:

“Everything went smoothly with our transaction and it was a pleasure to work with Roma Finance. Hopefully we will get a chance to do some more business in the future.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ron Bell .