An estate agent who tried to swindle an 89-year old woman has been sentenced to ten months in jail.
The elderly woman needed the money from the sale of her home because she in a nursing home and needed to fund her care.
Stephen Jones, who ran Conwy Estate Agents, planned to buy her Colwyn Bay flat in his wife’s name for £10,000 less than it was worth.
He then planned to sell it in a back-to-back sale for £27,000.
Jones, whose agency was selling the home, had received a genuine offer of £25,000 for the flat, which he failed to disclose to the pensioner or to Conwy Council.
Jones believed he could sell the property for £27,000.
It was the council – which planned to recover the woman’s care home fees through the sale of her property – which discovered the fraud through a charge on the flat.
It reported the matter to the police, who halted the transactions.
Owen Edwards, defending, said Jones, who had earlier pleaded guilty, had built up a business which involved renovating and restoring properties.
He said: “As a result of that work he became an estate agent because were advantages in having a one stop shop.
“But he was to discover he was a far better property developer than an estate agent.”
The estate agency is now closed. Jones is pictured below.
More in the Daily Post local paper here
Comments (3)
I wish I had read this story before the other one…… I would have called Dave – Stephen.
Tragic.
Unfortuantley there are lots of these stories around. I have heard many of these myself about agents in my area but without proof it is hard to prove.
One agent is especially “Known” for it. He fronts the firm while developers are backers. Guess what these developers find some real bargains, strange that!
We have a couple of small independent sets up which have appeared using developer money…
developers who not only do-em-up and spin-em-on but also run Timber, Damp full building maintenance companies who seem to have become incredibly busy off the back of surveys…..
Great idea to be fair, but you wonder how much of the knock on business is declared to the owner as related fees and how many of the quick “sold within 24 hour” probates are being purchased by where the real money is coming from.