Fraud

The first ever mortgage broker to be banned and fined by the FSA for mortgage fraud has walked free from court, the release resulting from her depression.

Sadia Nasir attempted to steal more than £100,000 by submitting false loan applications to Halifax bank. Nasir entered her own bank account details on the forms relating to two properties in London and Manchester and also used a fake name for the homeowner supposedly applying for the mortgage, reported London24.

The court heard that further investigation revealed that Nasir, the Director of Sucasa London Ltd, stood to gain £44,000 on one address at 79 Pittman Gardens, Ilford, East London, and £58,907 on the second at 132A Tempus Building, Manchester.

Despite the jury finding Nasir, 30, had committed the scam, following a two-day hearing at the Old Bailey, it was prevented from finding her criminally responsible after she was earlier ruled unfit to plead.

In July 2008, the FSA banned Nasir and fined her £129,000 after finding she had been involved in the numerous fraudulent mortgage applications highlighted above. This was the first time the FSA had both banned and fined a mortgage broker for mortgage fraud.

Nasir was FSA approved and director of a firm called London Mortgage and Financial Services Limited, which traded as House of Finance. It was then named Sucassa.

The FSA had found that Nasir:

* Submitted seven mortgage applications containing false information about her own employment and earnings supported by falsified documents;
* In four instances entered her own bank details on mortgage applications for clients;
* Deliberately withheld sections of an application form from FSA investigators, failed to disclose to the FSA information relating to a County Court Judgment made against her in September 2005 and failed to disclose the true extent of her assets in an authorisation application to the FSA.

Margaret Cole, former Director of Enforcement and Financial Crime at the time and last Managing Director at the FSA, said: “Ms Nasir’s actions were particularly serious and blatant, and she poses an immediate risk to lenders.”

Nasir also was the subject of another record when in July 2009, the FSA secured a bankruptcy order in the High Court against her for non-payment of the £129,000 financial penalty levied on her by the FSA a year previously for mortgage fraud. This was the first time the FSA had taken bankruptcy proceedings for an unpaid financial penalty levied on an Approved Person.

This month, Judge John Bevan QC told jurors detaining Nasir in hospital was “not appropriate because she is being cared for in the community for a long-term, deep depression.”

He added: “The only sentence I can sensibly pass is one of an absolute discharge.

“It is certainly an unusual trial, but it is not a waste of time because there are cases in which there is a genuine issue in which a person who didn’t do it could find themselves in a mental hospital when they haven’t done anything wrong.”

Catherine Farrelly, prosecuting, said she denied playing any part in either of the applications and had no idea where these false documents had come from.

Nasir explained that even if it was a member of her staff, all of the transactions had to be carried out in her name as she was the director of the company and money goes into her personal bank account.

Farrelly stated: “She said at the time in 2007 she had been heavily pregnant and was not in a position to know what was going on.”

Nasir refused to name any of her staff but did accept that two of the addresses used in support of one mortgage application were her home and her mother’s home.

“In essence the prosecution say it was Sadia Nasir who was behind these two frauds,” said Farrelly.

She added: “She was the person who stood to gain and it was very much in her interest for these frauds to be effected.

“It is quite clear it was this defendant who was behind both of these fraudulent applications.”

Nasir, of Gardiner Road, Plaistow, was charged with two counts of fraud by false representation between March 1 and March 7, 2007.

The jury had ruled that she “did the act” on each count.