Land Registry has published a guide warning against so-called land banking investment schemes which are often advertised as offering big returns on investments in land.

The government department says many investors have handed over thousands of pounds for land that has little or no chance of being developed.

Plots of land are offered for sale, often online, and sometimes with the claim that there will be huge returns when planning permission is obtained for housing or other development. But the land is usually in areas protected from development by planning law.

(Via Land Registry. To read the full press release, click here)
(See also Land Registry Public Guide 21 - Land banking schemes – buying land in England and Wales claimed or thought to have development potential)

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KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 24 (Bernama) -- The Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) today raided three companies suspected of offering investments in illegal land investment schemes.

The raids were conducted simultaneously at the UK Land International (M) Sdn Bhd, Profitable Plots Sdn Bhd and Edgeworth Properties (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.

The companies had allegedly contravened sections 94 and 363 of the Companies Act 1965.

In a statement, SSM said it had conducted surveillance on the companies over the past couple of months.

(Via Malaysian National News Agency. To read the full story, click here)

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Investors who bought plots of Finchampstead farmland on the basis of exaggerated claims they could triple their money are facing an uphill struggle to get their money back.

The investors, mostly from overseas, bought plots of land at Church Farm in Finchampstead Road for up to £20,500 from landbanking company UK Land Investments (UKLI).

However, an investigation by administrators winding up the activities of UKLI has found the land was in fact owned by another company, Regents Land, and was one of four sites in the UK owned by the firm which attracted hundreds of investors.

(Via The Wokingham Times. To read the full story, click here)

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If you are one of the people who bought a plot of land off Finchampstead Road in Finchampstead from UKLI, The Wokingham Times wants to hear from you.

Call on (0118) 9366 188 or email.

Thank you.

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A group of landbanking companies that sold sites where "there was no prospect of planning permission being obtained" has been would wound up in the public interest following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

Cheltenham-based Land International and three subsidiaries, all controlled by Michael John Morris, 60, and Stephen Nicholas Meissner, 45, began trading in early 2004 when they bought greenbelt land. It was subdivided into plots of around a tenth of an acre which were sold to some 700 investors, pulling in an estimated £10m.

(Via The Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

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The founder of a landbanking company that Guardian Money first featured three years ago, and which has left a £70m trail of debt, has reopened for business in Dubai, selling plots of land in Kent it calls Canary City to unsuspecting investors.

BBC Radio 4's Face the Facts will show how Baljinder Chohan, founder and owner of UKLI, has moved his operation from Berkeley Square in London to Dubai, and continues to sell the dream of turning tiny slices of agricultural land into sites with planning permission worth a fortune.

(Via The Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

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We would like to draw our readers' attention to the new forum for UKLI plotholders, created by the Joint Administrators of UKLI.

UKLI Forum

Please remember that this site has been set up specifically to deal with plot and site specific issues. Other issues should be addressed directly to the Joint Administrators and not though this forum. The Joint administrators accept no responsibility for posts submitted to this site by members.

Note that this is, so far as we are aware, the only official forum for UKLI plotholders.

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IN JANUARY 2006, I flagged up the emergence of a new industry which was about to become a financial scandal.

Tipped off by a reader to investigate land banking, I was concerned by promises being made by bogus property investment companies.

At the time I wrote: "Spiralling property prices have begun to spawn a new rip-off industry.

"One scam is the sale of small plots of agricultural land which, the sales companies claim, may get planning permission and increase in value by up to 300 per cent.

"The websites look professional and include reports from august bodies talking about the increase in land values. But what they don't say is that many of the plots of land are overpriced, in remote areas with no services and will never qualify for planning permission."

Two years later, the extent of this fraud is beginning to emerge. The financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), recently asked the High Court to wind up the UK's largest landbanking company - UKLI Limited.

(Via the Scottish Daily Record. To read the full story, click here)

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Britain's financial services watchdog is looking to shut down UK Land Investments (UKLI), the country's largest "landbanking" company, which has been the subject of Guardian Money warnings.

This will leave 4,500 investors with slices of virtually worthless farmland. It now appears that many might have avoided losses if the Financial Services Authority had listened to fraud squad requests to shut it down in 2005.

The FSA will ask the high court to wind up UKLI for operating as an illegal "collective investment scheme", thereby denying investors protection. The FSA says investors poured £69m into the firm, which sold small plots of "selected" farm land, claiming it could get planning permission for housing so the site would soar in value.

Investors are unlikely to get anything back from the liquidation as almost all the cash was soaked up in commissions and payments to directors and shareholders. But Guardian Money can reveal that fraud specialists at the City of London police were convinced UKLI was operating against the public interest when it first probed the Mayfair-based firm three years ago.

(Via The Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

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Leeds MP, Greg Mulholland, has expressed his delight that the FSA has called upon the High Court to wind up the UK’s largest land investment company UK Land Investments, after Mr Mulholland wrote to them to highlight serious financial irregularities in the way in which UKLI conducted business. 

Mr Mulholland wrote to the FSA back in May of last year, after UKLI’s Charted Accountants Moore Stephens resigned citing a number of suspect practices, including the ‘loaning’ of huge sums of money to affiliates of the UKLI, principally the former Director of the company Mr Bally Chohan, and subsidiary companies operating at a considerable loss.

Commenting Mr Mulholland said:

“I am delighted that the FSA is taking action to bring the dodgy dealings of UKLI to an end.

“As I raised with the FSA back in May of last year, there were a whole array of serious financial irregularities in the way in which UKLI was conducting its business.

“It has taken some time but finally UKLI will not be able to take any more money from unsuspecting investors, many of whom put their life savings into these types of scheme in the hope of a substantial return which never materialises.

“However, the problem of land banking does not stop with UKLI, the whole industry should come under much closer financial scrutiny.”

(Via Liberal Democrat press release)
(See also: Greg Mulholland writes to UKLI; 3 December 2006)

Update: Listen to Mr Mulholland on BBC Moneybox, broadcast 7 June 2008.

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The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has asked the High Court to wind up the UK’s largest 'landbanking' company, UKLI Limited (UKLI), for operating as an illegal ‘collective investment scheme’ (CIS) and denying its investors protection for their money.

UKLI advertised and sold plots of land to people by claiming that it could get planning permission for the land, which would increase in value and make investors a large profit once it was sold to a developer.  As a result, about 4,500 investors paid UKLI £69 million to buy the land.  None of the land sold was ever granted planning permission.

(Via FSA press release. To read the full story, click here)

An illegal landbanking scheme which sold plots of land to investors with the promise of big profits has had its assets frozen following action by the City watchdog.

UKLI Ltd bought up large chunks of land and divided them into small plots, which it sold on to investors.

Around 4,500 investors paid the firm £69m for 5,000 plots, which it claimed it could get planning permission for. These could then be sold on to a developer at a profit.

But none of the land was ever granted planning permission, leaving the investors with plots that were virtually worthless.

(Via The Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

An FSA spokeswoman confirmed that operating an illegal investment scheme would be covered under criminal offences in the UK but declined to comment on whether any criminal investigations or charges had been made in relation to UKLI.

(Via The Times Online. To read the full story, click here)



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