The owner of Stephen Tew Estate Agents, a well-established agency in Blackpool of over 30 years, has has been banned as a director after abusing the Bounce Back Loan (BBL) scheme.
Stephen Tew, 48, has been disqualified for 11 years after an Insolvency Service investigation found he took out two BBL.
It revealed that Tew caused Estates Limited T/A Stephen Tew Estate Agents to make false representations in an application for a BBL of £50,000 by declaring that no other BBL applications had been made on behalf of TC, when TC had already applied for and received a BBL of £40,000 from a different lender.
Further, Tew failed to ensure that at least £16,379 of the BBL funds were used for the economic benefit of the company, in that: Under the BBL scheme businesses were able to apply for up to 25% of their turnover to a maximum of £50,000.
Businesses which originally borrowed less than the maximum amount available to them under the scheme were eligible to top-up their original loan, however the total loan amount was not to exceed 25% of the business’s turnover.
Tew submitted a BBL application to a lender (Bank A) on behalf of TC, requesting a BBL of £40,000 and the BBL funds of £40,000 were paid into TC’s bank account, held with Bank A on 06 May 2020. Tew made a second BBL application on behalf of TC requesting a BBL of £50,000 from a different lender (Bank B).
The BBL funds of £50,000 were paid into TC’s bank account held with Bank B on 15 June 2020. The application form submitted to the second lender (Bank B) was completed by Tew and included a declaration confirming that this was the only BBL application made for this business. This was not the case as TC had already applied for and received a BBL of £40,000 from the first lender (Bank A). It was a requirement of the BBL scheme that the BBL funds were used for the economic benefit of TC.
Between 17 June 2020 and 25 June 2020 transactions totalling at least £16,379 were made from TC’s Bank B account that did not provide economic benefit to the company.
The first lender has confirmed an outstanding balance of £30,993 at the date of liquidation and the second lender has confirmed an outstanding balance of £50,912 at the date of liquidation.
