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Hundreds of Britons caught in £24m Florida housing 'scam'
Robert Mendick12.03.09
Hundreds of Britons have lost their life savings in an alleged £24million Florida property racket.
Court documents filed in the US accuse a British-born estate agent of defrauding customers of more than $34million, taken in deposits for homes that have never been built.
British investors bought land around Orlando and were promised their homes would be built within two years. But five years on the land remains a building site.
The estate agent at the centre of the allegations - tracked down by the Standard - said today there was no money left from the deposits.
Richard Wilkes, who denies any wrongdoing, said: "All that money has been spent." He claimed he could account for every penny and that cash was used to pay builders who have since gone bust and on marketing homes.
Mr Wilkes's company, Superior Homes & Investments, targeted buyers at property exhibitions in London and across Britain. He also employed an agency in Bristol - which has shut - to sell detached homes with swimming pools in Oakmont Resort, eight miles from Disney World.
A list of clients passed to the Standard shows that more than 500 paid deposits at Oakmont, including deposits of more than $300,000 (£217,000) on multiple properties. The deposits total more than $26million (£18.9million).
At another resort, Regal Oaks, also marketed by Mr Wilkes and where some houses have been completed, clients are owed $7.5million (£5.5million) on properties not yet built.
Some of the British investors have brought a class action against Superior Homes & Investments in Orlando to get some money back.
It claims: "The debtor [Superior Homes] never owned the real property that it contracted to sell to the various purchasers and did not disclose its non-ownership. During the time the debtor was fraudulently taking deposits for the sale of homes, its management knew the project had serious issues and could not be built."
But Mr Wilkes, who is in his forties and grew up in the West Country, said problems with Oakmont began when Florida sand skinks - a type of lizard - were found on the land. The builder then went bust.
Mr Wilkes said he was offering clients homes at a Regal Oaks instead. "This is complete nonsense," he said. All the money went into the project. We accept there are a lot of people who want their money back and are working with them as best we can."
Mr Wilkes said last week he would stop advertising Oakmont plots online. The website was still operating today.
'This is our worst nightmare, we have lost our life savings'
Several families have come forward to tell how they now fear losing their life savings. They paid deposits of 10 per cent at a time when the pound was strong against the dollar and property values were rising in Florida - convinced the investments could not go wrong.
Andy Thomson, 38, and his wife Laura, 35, handed over $54,000 in July 2004 to Superior for a five-bedroom detached house with pool on the Oakmont estate.
The Thomsons' deposit cost them roughly £29,000 at the time but is now worth about £39,000.
Mr and Mrs Thomson, from Hornchurch, were on the last day of their honeymoon and driving around Orlando with time to kill before catching their flight.
Passing Superior Homes' office, they stopped and inquired about property and later bought a house. "This is our worst nightmare," said Mr Thomson, a father-of-three and an estate agent. "They promised to build it within two years. The contract guarantees that so we should have had our deposit back in 2006.
"This was pretty much all our life savings that have gone into this."
Another investor, Nadia Ross, who made her money in London organising conferences but now lives in York, fears she has lost her $33,000 deposit.
Ms Ross, a mother-of-one, said: "The whole fiasco has been traumatic. You feel so helpless when everything is occurring so far away and so far out of your control.
"The nerve of Superior takes my breath away - even now, they are advertising luxury homes for sale, yet I received no reply to any of the emails I sent following their curt email saying we had lost our money."
Reader views (8)
is there any web sites i can go to, to find out if there is any chance of sueing superior,for the money back, or has our investment been totally lost?
- J. Cruttenden, durham
We lost $38000 in our booking amount in Regal Oaks by Superior Homes and Investment, another company by
this crook. He has cooked books and now says there is no money left. I have seen people like me loosing their life savings in not just one or two communities by this criminal but multiple communities. Sitting 3000-4000 miles from Florida, you feel so helpless specially because he is using our sweat and blood money to pay the lawyers, accountants who are against people like US from DAY ONE.
- Rajeev Bishnoi, San Jose, CA, USA
I have also lost £40,000 with a company called British American Homes. Again i paid the deposit in Dec 2005 and not only no house but the company and run off with the money. My money was transfered into an Escro Account so they shouldnt have been able to access the money until it was authorised and the property had been built and i dont have any more savings to persue getting an attorney and going any further with it.
- Paul Noblett, Leeds
We are just one of the group that have lost our money. We attended the exhibition in London and then went to Florida to see where Oakmont would be located. The fact that there was an agent in Bristol, near to home, and having seen the other sites that Superior were running, we paid our deposit of $36,000 in May 2005. We foolishly paid a further $36,000 in August 2007 as we were told that building work would be starting. It's been a nightmare. This was hard earned money that was going to be our investment for our retirement.
- Jan & Rob Gale, Barnstaple, N. Devon
Reply to uncle vanya east anglia. We visited florida site 3 times looked arround furnished property saw propities being built followed web photos for 2 years what more could we have done ? bemussed of newcastle
- Alan, newcastle
Oh dear it seems greed and speculation on property is not a good investment after all.
- Peter Noterfed, Paris, France
Unfortunately these types of frauds will continue. As long as there are people willing to 'buy' property in foreign countries without actually going there to inspect the site of what they are buying - conmen will take them for a ride. It is a case of 'Buyer Beware', and it should be the responsibility of the buyer to travel to that country to see what he/she is purchasing.
- Uncle Vanya, East Anglia area UK
You cannot put into words how I feel about this criminal. He's robbed us of our life savings, my children's holiday to Disney, my retirement home and now he is fighting us in the courts with no money because as he said there is no money left, except all our money so he's on a no lose situation. He treats everyone in Florida with contempt and thinks Florida is Crooks Paradise.
Wake up Florida take action against this man now.
- Andrew Hastings, ENFIELD MIDDLESEX ENGLAND
