A plan for £1m fund to help first time buyers in Conwy with deposits for a mortgage has won backing.

Conwy Council passed the scheme to invest the money as a bond and help people get onto the property ladder.

The plans are still to be endorsed at a full council meeting will provide a financial guarantee to the lender but will not give money directly to buyers.

The Scheme is also being considered by other councils in Wales.

The turmoil within the financial and banking sectors has had negative effect on the economy and on the local housing market.

There has been a significant impact on first time buyers because of the reduction in the loan to value mortgages from 95% down to 75% necessitating a deposit of 25% of the value of the property.

The Council will put up a guarantee to cover the difference between what banks and building society would normally lend and what the borrower needs to buy.

A Gareth Jones who is 37 years old and a first time buyer from Llansannan and is struggling to buy his first home said it’s quite depressing sometimes.

You need a deposit to the tune of £30,000 depending on where and what you want to buy.

He has got less than £10,000 in savings and just gone back to college to train as a teacher so he is not going to be saving much for a while yet.

Ian Williams from an estate agents said some young people have had help from their families with their house deposit.

Frustrating

On paper it should be the best time ever to buy because interest rates are low house prices have come down but yet they can’t buy because they haven’t got a deposit.

It is frustrating because we see investors coming in buying what should be first time buyer’s homes and leaving local people and young people without any homes.

Plaid Cymru councillor Meirion Hughes said the council would not be paying anyone’s mortgage but would be putting a guarantee to allow banks and building societies to lend more.

Any help we can give to get the housing market moving again and help people move house will also help the economy in Conwy said Mr Hughes.

The problem at the moment is the uncertainty and this scheme will help with buyers and sellers confidence within the property market.

If the buyer defaulted on the mortgage the council would have to pay back the part of the loan it had guaranteed.

The council will be taking steps to reduce the risks to a minimum and maximum value of the property to qualify would be £140,000.

The plans will have to be approved by the full council in October.

This scheme could be up and running by the spring.

Three men were sentenced to a total of 19 years at Southwark Crown Court for boiler room fraud following an investigation by the FSA, City of London Police and Eurojust.

The Crown Prosecution Service conducted the prosecution.

The ringleader Tomas Wilmot has been sentenced to nine years imprisonment while his sons Kevin and Christopher were given five years each. These sentences were passed following the individuals convictions on four offences of conspiracy to defraud which resulted in £14 million of losses.

They controlled a syndicate of boiler rooms that defrauded an estimated 1,700 investors of £27.5 million in total. Many victims were elderly and some suffering serious illnesses.

The court found all three conspired to acquire transfer and sell millions of low value worthless and sometimes non existent shares to victims of the UK.

Judge Leonard QC sentencing said:

You ran a highly successful enterprise. You deprived many individual investors of substantial amounts of money. For some money they could not afford to give up. A staggering £14 million.

“ you have sailed close to the wind of commercial enterprises and not a surprise the FSA investigated you.

Speaking to the sons he said both of you played an important role including the mechanics of sending documents to give false comfort to investors. Thomas said he could not have don’t it alone and he did not”.

As the investigation continued the operation was revealed:

16 different boiler rooms had sold shares to 1,700 different UK victims between 2003 and 2008.

£27.5m was paid into 5 UK bank accounts

Approx £14m was transferred out of 5 UK accounts to offshore banks in Malta, Lithuania and Spain and

The boiler rooms based predominantly in Spain but the back office accounts and companies used in the operation were from Malta, Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania, Austria, Andorra, Brazil, Belize, Dubai and a number of Caribbean Islands.

Boiler Rooms

Shared fraudsters usually contact via telephone to con investors into buying non-tradable, overpriced or non-existent shares.

These fraudsters are unauthorised, normally overseas based companies with fake UK addresses and phone lines routed abroad. In the vast majority of cases, investors lose all their money.

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