Prosperity – Update 2

Prosperity Update 2 – A total of 64 investors at the Prosperity Wealth development at Bentley Court and Parkwood Court (aka Parkwood Rise) have signed contracts to participate in an action to recover their investments.

This represents a very high number of investors who are unhappy with the way this development was promoted to them by Prosperity Wealth, and the inadequate legal advice they received from their solicitor which it is alleged amounts to gross negligence, and the rapidly escalating fees charged for the ground rent and the service charges.

It is the view of Safe Or Scam that the sale of apartments in these tower blocks was an elaborate and carefully constructed structure to try to circumvent Financial Conduct Authority regulations regarding the establishment and operation of an unregulated collective investment scheme.

An unregulated collective investment scheme (a UCIS) is a structure which involves the pooling of investments and it can only be sold by FCA regulated entities to investors who meet strict criteria. The entities involved in the formation, operation and sale of the Prosperity UCIS were not regulated by the FCA. No attempt was made to qualify investors to ensure they were suitable recipients of the investment promotional material.

The sale of a UCIS by unregulated sales companies to unqualified investors makes the contracts unlawful and unenforceable i.e the contracts would be deemed illegal. Investors who have lost money by investing in a UCIS are entitled to a full refund. All parties involved in the formation, promotion, operation or facilitation of a UCIS can be included as defendants with liability to refund investors. The Prosperity scheme at Bentley Court and Parkwood Court is not just a UCIS in the opinion of Safe Or Scam. It is also the opinion of one of the UK’s leading barristers specialising in financial services legislation.

It is clear to us that this was on Prosperity’s mind because their promotional material which, don’t forget, was supposed to be the sale of apartments, stated that “this is not a collective investment scheme” on two separate pages within the brochure. We have never seen any property brochure which mentions ‘collective investment scheme’ even once. It just does not appear in any bona-fide property sale brochure because a straightforward property sale is not a UCIS so there is no need to ever mention it.

There are loop-holes that can be exploited to try to circumvent UCIS regulations but most of those have failed when the matter is brought to court. The courts have tended to look beyond the clever structures to determine what the actual intent was. In the vast majority of cases the courts have concluded that the structures were simply cloaking mechanisms to try to get around the regulations. The perpetrators have been found guilty of participating in a UCIS.

It is our opinion that Prosperity PDC Management (Cyprus) Ltd i.e Prosperity Wealth and ALB Investments Ltd were involved in a UCIS. It remains to be seen whether this was known by other parties involved in the transaction who may have decided to turn a blind eye. Investors were not informed of the ownership of the tower blocks by their recommended law firm and they were not warned that their contracts may be regarded as illegal. We believe that no investor would ever have entered into a contract if they had been advised that the scheme may be regarded as a UCIS and that the contracts may be declared unlawful in the future.

The parties involved in the investment were:

PDC Prosperity Investment (Cyprus) Ltd / PDC Prosperity Management (Cyprus) Ltd / Incommunities Ltd / ALB Investments Ltd / Let Me Property Ltd / Allchurch Solicitors.

There is a stand-alone website dedicated to the Prosperity investment at Bentley Court and Parkwood Court which can be viewed on this LINK.

To read the previous post related to Prosperity on this website please click HERE.