Bosses of an East London property lettings company have been banned for 13.5 years, after an investigation found the company guilty of abusing tax authorities and failing to maintain company records
Harrison Property Partners Ltd was incorporated in 2012, and offered property lettings and property management services, trading from offices in Tower Hamlets, East London.
In February 2018, Harrison Property Partners went into Creditors Voluntary, and the company’s insolvency triggered an investigation by the Insolvency Service.
Investigators found that Khushal Khagram, Andrew Matin and Alan George had either failed to maintain company records or abused the tax regime, leading to all three being banned from running limited companies for a total of 13.5 years.
Investigation breakdown
Alan George Clark was the first of the three to be banned for a total of 3.5 years in August 2020, after investigators uncovered he failed to submit tax returns while he was director of the company from September 2013 until his resignation in July 2016.
Tax returns submitted after Alan Clark left Harrison Property Partners showed that close to £191,000 was owed to the tax authorities.
The next director to be banned was Andrew Geoffrey Matin. The property boss was removed from the companies house register for 6 years in August 2021, after investigators exposed that Matin had failed to ensure the company maintained sufficient accounting records and failed to deliver these to the liquidator.
Matin’s misconduct means it is not possible to verify many of Harrison Property Partners’ activities, which included the verification over whether more than £770,000 spent was on legitimate business expenditure.
During his time as director, Matin failed to ensure the property company submitted tax returns between October 2016 and February 2018 and traded to the detriment of the tax authorities.
Since the property company went into liquidation, the tax authorities are owed more than £309,000 in tax liabilities.
Khushal Khagram was the last of the directors to be banned on 24 November 2021 for 4 years, after investigators uncovered that Khagram failed to ensure the property company submitted tax returns and traded to the detriment of the tax authorities.
Khushal Khagram, Andrew Matin and Alan Clark had their disqualification undertakings accepted by the Secretary of State, and are banned from directly or indirectly becoming involved, without the permission of the court, in the promotion, formation, and management of a company.
‘Property bosses totally disregarded their responsibilities as company directors’
Lawrence Zussman, deputy director of Insolvent Investigations, said: “All three property bosses totally disregarded their responsibilities as company directors.
“The absence of proper company records means we cannot verify legitimate business activities and the failure to submit tax returns means they also abused the taxpayer in the process.
“13-and-a-half years is a considerable amount of time to be removed from the corporate arena and will protect creditors and the tax payer from any further harm caused by Khushal Khagram, Andrew Matin and Alan Clark”.
