LOAN company boss Abiola Agbalaya has been fined £100,000 for lying on mortgage application forms, a penalty that could be the sign of things to come for personal finance chancers.
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Between 2002 and 2008 – the heyday of the recent property boom – Agbalaya, director of Herald Finance, pretended the Lewisham firm’s turnover figure of £150,000 was his own income on the way to applying for eight mortgages.
Another employee at Herald Finance, Grace Olatunji, was found by the government-backed Financial Services Authority to have lied while applying for two mortgages.
Both Olatunji and Agbalaya have been banned from working in the mortgage finance industry.
“The actions of Mr Agbalaya and Ms Olatunji were serious and blatant, and posed an immediate risk to lenders,” said the FSA’s Margaret Cole.
During the boom, there were loads of stories of dodgy lending, but the FSA admits it has banned just 30 mortgage brokers in the last two years.
Now that the property tide has turned, it looks like Olatunji and Agbalaya will be the first in a rash of similar cases.
“Perpetrators of fraud will increasingly find themselves facing bans and significant fines as we continue our work in this area,” said Cole.
