The longest sentence handed out so far this year was to property tycoon Achilleas Michalis Kallakis who received a seven year prison sentence in January for his role in a £61m fraud, which included scamming mortgage lenders such as Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Scotland.
A Court of Appeal judge later added an extra four years onto his sentence.
Back on our patch this time, a pair of mortgage advisers Eastleigh-based Alex Chiswell and Colin Zaczyk were handed six-and-a-half years between them.
Chiswell was found guilty of helping an unemployed man and his wife obtain three mortgages and was sentenced to four years in jail. Zaczyk received a two-and-a-half year jail term for dishonestly gaining a separate mortgage in the Hampshire town.
In July, mortgage broker Michael Joseph James Lewis was sentenced to two years in prison for making and supplying documentation in an attempt to deceive mortgage lenders.
The adviser also ran a mortgage broker firm when he had been banned by the regulator from doing so. He received the sentence at Maidstone Crown Court and FCA director of enforcement and financial crime Tracey McDermott said this sent a ‘clear signal to anyone who might be tempted to do the same’.
Keeping it in the family this time, the FCA banned a father-son mortgage broker firm for submitting fraudulent mortgage applications to lenders which contained false and misleading information.
Douglas Jones and his son Derek Jones were both directors of Glasgow firm Which Mortgage and were barred from the industry and told they ‘acted without due skill and care’ by the regulator.
And finally, last month, separate cases involving two of the UK’s biggest property firms resulted in criminal convictions for their former employees.
Thomas Kelly, branch manager of Connells’ West Bromwich office, and his wife were found guilty of forging staff signatures to secure properties for below their market value while Andrew Butts carried out a separate scam. The trio gained £133,000 between them.
A former Countrywide lettings agent was also found guilty of fraud by false representation by a court in Retford.
Blidworth-based Katie Green, 23, changed the bank account details of a landlord to her own personal account with the intention of siphoning off almost £5,000. She was handed a 12 week suspended prison sentence for her crime.
