Imagine Homes Costs Taxpayer £20m

News — By admin on July 1, 2009 at 10:03 pm

Despite handing his company back to the bank last year Grant Bovey and his wife Anthea Turner have just spent £5million on two homes in Surrey. So you could forgive the taxpayers for feeling a little miffed that they are having to pick up a £20million bill for the collapse of his property empire.

The taxpayer has ended up in the frame because Grant Bovey’s buy-to-let business had been propped up by loans from Halifax Bank of Scotland when it hit the buffers. Imagine Homes was handed to the bank in October last year having sustained losses of more than £50million.

That debt has now been passed to bailed-out bank Lloyds Group after its takeover of HBOS earlier this year. The taxpayer owns a 43 per cent share of Lloyds, leaving them liable for more than £20million of Bovey’s debt.

Last week Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: ‘Yet again we find a tale of reckless lending by the banks where the taxpayer is left to pick up the tab. Buy-to-let was one of the riskiest areas of the property market and HBOS should never have left itself so exposed.’

Imagine Homes was once one of the largest buy-to-let businesses in the country but Mr Bovey’s track record in business is patchy having already presided over a number of failed firms.