How we recover money for loan note holders

There is rarely a single route. We assess every case against all of the following and pursue whichever routes are open to you and often more than one at the same time.

1. APP fraud bank reimbursement

This is the route that recovers money for the largest number of our loan note clients after a scheme has collapsed.

Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud is where you are deceived into authorising a payment yourself. That is exactly what happens when an investor is persuaded to transfer money on the strength of false representations that the investment was secured, that a first charge was in place, that the money would fund a specific development, or that the scheme was FSCS protected. Banks have obligations to reimburse victims of APP fraud, and they can be held liable for having processed the payment.

Payments on or after 7 October 2024The Payment Systems Regulator’s mandatory reimbursement rules apply. Banks must reimburse eligible victims, up to a cap of £85,000 per claim.
Payments before 7 October 2024The Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) Code applies to payments sent from UK bank accounts. There is no £85,000 cap under this route.
Time limitClaims under the mandatory reimbursement rules must be brought within 13 months of the last payment. Do not wait for a police, FCA or administrator investigation to conclude — the clock does not stop.
Overseas investorsYou may still qualify if your funds passed through a UK bank account at any point, in either direction. Do not assume you are excluded because you live abroad.

If your bank has already said no, that is not the end of the road. Banks routinely reject these claims at the first stage on the basis that a failed investment is a “civil dispute” rather than a fraud. Challenging that position is a core part of our work. In the Unique Property Investment Group case, banks initially refused every claim; we investigated, produced evidence going to the fraudulent nature of the scheme, and the banks began paying out. Investors who received an earlier rejection should come back to us.

2. Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) complaints

Where a bank refuses a reimbursement claim, or where a regulated firm was involved in selling or advising on the loan note, we can take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The FOS is free to consumers, and it can award redress where a firm has acted unfairly or unreasonably — a broader test than a court would apply.

We use the FOS route in three main situations:

  • Against your bank – challenging a refused APP reimbursement claim, or arguing the bank failed to intervene when a large, out-of-character payment to a new payee should have triggered a warning or a call.
  • Against a regulated adviser or introducer – where an FCA-authorised firm recommended the loan note, failed to assess suitability, wrongly certified you as a sophisticated investor, or did not disclose the commission it earned.
  • Against a SIPP operator – where an unregulated loan note was accepted into a self-invested personal pension without adequate due diligence.
FOS award limitsSubstantial — and higher than many investors expect. We will confirm the limit applying to your complaint, which depends on when the act complained of took place.
Time limitsGenerally six months from the firm’s final response letter, and six years from the event (or three years from when you knew, or should have known, you had cause to complain).
Cost to youThe FOS charges consumers nothing. Where we act, we do so on a no win, no fee basis.
3. FSCS compensation claims

The loan note itself is almost never covered by the FSCS. But if the investment was sold or recommended to you by an FCA-authorised firm — an IFA, a wealth manager, an authorised introducer or an investment platform — and that firm has since been declared in default, you may be able to claim compensation from the FSCS for the bad advice.

This route has recovered money for investors in schemes sold through authorised distributor firms that have since failed. We check the regulatory history of every introducer in the chain as a standard part of assessing your case, because investors are frequently unaware that the firm they dealt with was authorised at all.

4. Claims against regulated parties and introducers

Where an FCA-authorised firm, a solicitor, an accountant or a SIPP operator was involved in the transaction, there may be a professional negligence or unsuitable advice claim. We also look closely at commission: where an adviser earned a substantial undisclosed commission for placing you into a loan note, that can give rise to a claim in its own right.

5. Group litigation and civil claims

Where a large number of investors have been affected in the same way, a group claim can make litigation viable that would be uneconomic for any one investor. We build investor groups, share the cost across the group, and pursue claims against directors, connected companies, security trustees and professional advisers. We also work with international investigators to trace assets across borders.

Law firm or claims management company? What the difference means for your claim

There are huge strategic advantages to employing a law firm to recover money on loan note investments.

Many loan note investors are approached by claims management companies (CMCs). A CMC can be a perfectly reasonable route for a straightforward claim, and a good one will handle a bank reimbursement submission competently. But a CMC is not a law firm, and there is a hard limit on what it can do for you.

Conducting litigation by issuing and running court proceedings is a reserved legal activity under the Legal Services Act 2007. Only a regulated law firm can do it. That matters in loan note cases, because the routes that recover the most money are frequently the ones that require the credible threat, or the reality, of proceedings.

Recovery route or protectionRichardson Hartley Law (SRA-regulated law firm)Claims management company (FCA-regulated CMC)
Bank (APP) fraud reimbursement✅ Full service, including challenging refusals and taking the argument as far as it needs to go✅  Most CMCs will submit a reimbursement claim on your behalf
Financial Ombudsman Service complaints✅  Against banks, advisers, introducers and SIPP operators✅  Can generally refer a complaint to the FOS
FSCS compensation claims✅  Where a regulated firm in the chain is in default ✅ Can generally submit an FSCS claim
Issuing and conducting court proceedings✅  We can issue and run proceedings ourselves ❌ A reserved legal activity – a CMC cannot do this and would have to refer you to a law firm
Professional negligence claims✅  Against IFAs, wealth managers, solicitors, accountants and SIPP operators❌  Cannot litigate a negligence claim
Group litigation and collective actions✅  We build and run investor groups, sharing cost across the group❌  Cannot conduct group proceedings
Claims against directors, connected companies and security trustees✅  Including misrepresentation and breach of duty claims❌  Outside the scope of claims management activity
Asset tracing, freezing orders and injunctions✅  Working with international investigators where assets have moved abroad❌ Cannot apply to the court for relief
Advice from a qualified solicitor✅  Your case is assessed and run by solicitors❌ CMCs are not law firms and their staff are not solicitors
Legal professional privilege✅  Your communications with us are privileged❌  Communications with a CMC do not attract legal professional privilege
Regulation and client protections✅  Regulated by the SRA, with compulsory professional indemnity insurance and access to the SRA Compensation Fund•  Regulated by the FCA for claims management activity – a different regime with different protections

To be fair to CMCs: if your claim is a single, clean bank reimbursement submission and nothing more, a reputable CMC may well be able to help you. The difficulty is that loan note cases rarely stay that simple. Banks reject these claims routinely on the basis that a failed investment is a civil dispute. Security turns out not to exist where investors were told it was. Regulated introducers sit in the chain. Directors and connected companies have received investor money. Each of those points opens a route that only a law firm can take to its conclusion and if a CMC has to refer your file on at that stage, you can end up paying twice for the same claim.

Whoever you instruct, ask two questions before you sign: what happens if the bank says no, and can you take my case to court? If the answer to the second is no, ask what happens to your claim at that point.

Fees: You do not pay more for a law firm

Investors often assume that instructing a law firm must cost more than instructing a CMC. On APP fraud reimbursement claims, that is not the case. We act on the same capped fee basis as a claims management company – the fee caps that apply to CMCs on financial services claims are the caps we work within too.

We mainly work on a no win, no fee basis. There is nothing to pay upfront, nothing to pay if we do not recover your money, and the percentage and the cap are set out in writing before you commit to anything. You get a regulated law firm, and every route described above, at no additional cost on the reimbursement claim itself.

See our fees here.

Where a case goes beyond a reimbursement claim into litigation, a professional negligence claim or a group action, the funding arrangement is explained separately and in full before any work begins. You will never receive an unexpected bill from us.

Acting Before A Company Collapses

Most investors contact a solicitor after a company has entered administration. By then, the money has usually gone. You do not have to wait for a collapse, and you should not.

Richardson Hartley Law acts for loan note holders in schemes that are still trading. If any of the following applies to you, we can help now:

Your interest payments are late, reduced or have stopped

Late payments are the earliest and clearest warning sign, and they are usually accompanied by explanations — a delayed planning decision, a bank refinancing, a market slowdown, an administrative error. Sometimes those explanations are genuine. Often they are the first stage of a collapse, and the investors who act on them recover money while the investors who accept them do not.

Your loan note has matured and your capital has not been repaid

A failure to repay capital on the redemption date is a default. It gives rise to legal rights, and it is frequently the point at which a company is at its most responsive — because it does not want a formal demand, a winding-up petition, or a group of investors organising together.

You want your money out because you are worried about the scheme

You do not need to wait until something has formally gone wrong. If you have lost confidence in a scheme — because of what you have read, because the company has stopped communicating, because the development you invested in has visibly not been built, or because you have simply thought better of it — we can advise on your contractual position and press for an exit on your behalf.

You have been offered a rollover, an extension or new terms

Be careful here. When a scheme is under pressure, investors are often approached and asked to extend the term, convert into a new instrument, accept shares instead of cash, or move into a different company within the group. Do not sign anything before taking advice. Agreeing to new terms can weaken or extinguish rights you currently have, and it can restart or complicate the clock on the time limits that protect you.

What we do at this stage:
  1. Review your loan note instrument, subscription agreement, information memorandum and any security or guarantee documents
  2. Check the position at Companies House for registered charges, the officers, the filing history and the accounts and verify whether the security you were promised actually exists and sits where you were told
  3. Check the FCA register and warning list for the issuer, the security trustee and every introducer in the chain
  4. Assess and preserve your APP reimbursement position before the 13-month deadline passes
  5. Write formal demands for payment and, where appropriate, put the company on notice of misrepresentation
  6. Bring you together with other investors in the same scheme so you can act as a group

Some Of The Loan Note And Bond Schemes We Are Working On

These are among the schemes on which we currently act for investors. Each has its own page with detailed background and the recovery routes available.

Godwin CapitalProperty development loan notes — an estimated £155m raised; administration June 2025; High Court claims issued against directors May 2026
Alderley GroupAffordable housing developer — loan notes offering returns of up to 17%; administration June 2026; more than 900 investors estimated to have lost £40m
Hunter Jones Group / HJ CollectionProperty investment loan notes – the group says it has raised more than £300m since 2013; a previous FCA warning has since been withdrawn
Propiteer Capital PLCBond-issuing company marketed as “asset-backed” property investment; FCA warning published 20 March 2026
Ashbrookes InspiredUnregulated property scheme – loan notes said to be secured with Alpha Trustee Services Ltd; sold largely through third-party introducers
Halcyon RetreatLoan notes in a French golf and spa resort – promised ten-year guaranteed rental returns; resort unfinished; late and missing payments reported
Pearcroft DevelopmentsProperty development loan notes offering fixed returns of 8-20%; group collapsed – compulsory liquidation, dissolution and receivership across the companies
Concept CapitalInvestments secured against static homes – £23m lost; the security proved to be of little or no value
Unique Property Investment Group£12m taken in from 500+ investors against only £315,000 of property assets; banks initially rejected all claims and are now paying out after we challenged them

A full list of the schemes we are working on is available on our investment loss claims page. If the scheme you invested in is not listed, please still contact us. We take on new schemes regularly and we may already be investigating it.

Recognised experts – our work in the national media

Richardson Hartley Law is regularly approached by national newspapers and broadcasters for expertise on loan note and investment fraud.

Our senior partner, Martin Richardson, has commented on some of the largest scheme collapses in the UK, and we have worked directly with investigative journalists to bring these cases to public attention which in several instances has brought forward further investors and strengthened the position of the group as a whole.

  • The Daily Telegraph – Godwin Capital – Coverage of the £155m High Court freezing order obtained by administrators, featuring Martin Richardson and several of the investors we represent.
  • The Times- Loan Notes Investigation – We helped The Times newspaper with its investigation into the growing loses caused by loan notes.
  • City AM- Alderley Group – We spoke to City AM along with our clients about the collapse of the property investment scheme.
  • Daily Express- Ponzi Schemes – Our senior partner wrote a hard hitting piece about the rise of Ponzi schemes, including loan notes, in a column for the Daily Express.
  • The Times- The Rise of Loan Notes – We spoke to The Times newspaper to voice our concerns about the growing problem of unregulated loan notes.
  • The Times – Halcyon Retreat – Our senior partner and one of our clients spoke to The Times after a director of the collapsed French resort was arrested in Spain following a French fraud investigation.

How To Start Your Loan Note Claim

The first step is a free, no-obligation enquiry. There is nothing to pay and no commitment.

1. Get in touchCall us or complete the enquiry form. Tell us the scheme, roughly how much you invested, when the payments were made and which bank you used.
2. Free assessmentWe assess your case against every available route – bank reimbursement, FOS, FSCS, claims against introducers, insolvency and group litigation.
3. No win, no feeIf we can help, we mainly act under a conditional fee agreement with capped fees.
4. DocumentsHelpful documents include your loan note certificate, subscription agreement, information memorandum, bank statements showing the transfers, and any correspondence with the company or the introducer.