Estate Agent banned after spending clients monies

0
980
private bailiffs tenant evictions rise

The owner of a Ipswich based Estate Agency has been banned from running a Business for five years.

Jane Hipkin Russell aged 58, was subject to investigations by the Insolvency Service looking at the causes of the collapse of Jonathan Waters Estate Agents in 2018. They found that Russell had failed to fulfil obligations to tenants by not placing their deposits in the required safety deposit schemes.

Investigators found that 11 tenants deposits had not been placed in secure accounts to the value of £12,000 There were also missing rent payments made in 2018 that totalled £7,000

Russell had taken over the company in September 2014. Increasingly difficult trading conditions saw Jonathan Waters Estate Agents enter liquidation in August 2018, less than 4 years after Russell had taken over.

The rent payments should have been paid to Landlords but instead Russell had spent them on running costs of the failing enterprise.

Due to the reckless actions of Jane Russell, over £28,000 of funds that were not hers to spend were used to pay bills.

The disqualification is to start from January 24th and run for a total of 5 years.

Rob Sheils, senior investigator for the Insolvency Service, said: “A fundamental part of Jane Russell’s role was being responsible for safeguarding money on behalf of her tenants and landlords, something she failed to do prior to the company falling into liquidation.

Read more about debt collection in Ipswich

LEAVE A REPLY

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.