A London Hairdresser Tells Lisette Felix How A British Bank ‘Took Her Property Unlawfully’
Chez Felicienne, that’s the name of her business anyway, it’s a hairdressers in Kensal Green; which has a vibrancy and energy that is brought alive by the old family photographs that sit in its glass ornament cabinet and bright red, green and colours of the wooden fixtures that transport you back in time to the late 50s’, a time when a new community of West Indians from all the Islands of the Caribbean crowed themselves onto the Empire Windrush, with their paper bags, packages tied up with string and battered suitcases full of hopes and dreams of a new life, opportunity ready to embark on a different journey and live the good life in England, the mother country where the streets are paved with gold.
The name chez means home – Felicienne’s Home if you’re interested, but the truth is Felicienne has no home. Her beloved home was taken from her at the height of the financial crisis in 2007-2008, her only crime is that she put the needs of a family member in crisis before her own. She decided to take in her nephew when his troubled parents turned to the path of Heroin and the authorities threatened to put their child into care. She now makes her bed on the floor of her business every single night and whilst pondering her fate.
It all started, Felicienne remembers… when her brother’s marriage had fallen apart and he had taken up with a young lady who soon became pregnant and gave birth to his child. Unbeknownst to the family, the lady had a history of drug abuse and had had previous children – 4 of which had been taken away from her and put into care under an ‘at risk’ regulation for children in this situation. This 5th child was headed towards the same fate when Mrs Felicienne Blenman-Bogie stepped in. ‘No-one was going to put any member of my family in care’.. ‘However, if the Mother had transferred to care of the child i.e., allowed me to adopt him, things may have turned out quite differently.’ Perhaps her life would have taken an easier turn, but the easy life was not destined for Felicienne.
After Felicienne had undergone the usual checks and thorough vetting by the local borough council, she was deemed acceptable to take on this child, but what Felicienne was not aware of was the many restrictions that were in place to protect a ‘child at risk’, that would have a devastating effect on her life and ability to earn her daily bread. ‘Social Services told me that I was not allowed to work or have anybody look after him (unless they have been thoroughly checked by them). Therefore, I couldn’t leave him with his brother, or his sister. I couldn’t take him to work with me. As I already had a teaching post at a local college they allowed me to continue doing that, but they got someone in the area to babysit him whilst I taught. Finally, after three months, my brother and his girlfriend (his parents) gave me some money to buy clothes for my nephew, but they never gave me anything for myself even though they promised that they would’ help me financially to look after him.
Eventually, Felicienne got into arrears with her mortgage and it got to a stage whereby the bank; Bank of Scotland decided to re-possess her property.
Prior to this situation, she had divorced her husband in 2006 and in order to settle a financial commitment with him, had put the property in her brother’s name in order to release some of the equity in the house. This was facilitated by a Broker, Mr. Stanley Anyanarwo; an associate of her solicitor. After this process was completed her solicitor; Ms. Obusala Jolaoso admitted that she ‘forgotten’ to do the Deed of Trust, which would have effectively put the house back in Felicienne’s, name. This seems astonishing to me that anyone could ‘forget’ such an important process that could have overreaching and life changing repercussions going forward for all the parties involved. Anyway, it was suggested by the same solicitor that a Power of Attorney should be done instead and this would give Felicienne power of the sale of the house so that the proceeds would go to her. Mrs Blenman-Bogie got a restitution order in place so that the house could not be sold at least until the deadline of 31st December, when the property would have to be sold by the mortgage lenders to satisfy the re-possession order.
Mrs Blenman-Bogie went to visit her friend in the Property Supermarket who was called Amit and he introduced her to a gentleman called Prince, who offered to buy the house for £500,000.00 a sum well below the then market value of £725,000.00, if she was unable to sell it.
After a few failed attempts to sell it on her own Felicienne went back to her solicitor, who informed her that she had two interested parties that were ready to buy the house. The two parties were offering lower bids than she was willing to consider at that time. However, as it later transpired her solicitor did not have two clients at all, it appears that the solicitor was trying to acquire the house herself. Felicienne was unaware of negotiations to this end that were going on without her knowledge and continued to send any interested parties to her solicitors to make arrangements for the process of viewing etc., and the exchanging contracts to begin, but each time the clients would become frustrated with the solicitor ‘giving them the run-around’ and move on. One of the solicitor’s tasks was to produce the HIP PACK: Home Information Pack which is a set of documents, guaranteeing energy performance, and is mandatory by law for any home with more than 3 bedrooms. Each time the clients ask for it they were told it was not ready.
‘What I didn’t know at the time, said Felicienne was that my solicitor Ms. Obusala Jolaoso and the Broker, Mr. Stanley Anyanarwo; both Nigerians, would stall any genuinely interested people who wanted to buy the house and got two allegedly fictitious clients a Mrs Stephenson and a Mr. Singh to make bids on their behalf, as solicitors they were not supposed to have had an interest.
In the meantime Felicienne had taken a loan totalling £5,000.00 from Stanley to facilitate the divorce settlement from her husband to pay some outstanding bills and take herself and her family on a well earned holiday to Jamaica, leaving the sale of the house in the capable hands, or so she thought, of her solicitor. The monies were to be paid back by Mrs Blenman-Bogie upon settlement of the sale of her house. In good faith Mrs Blenman-Bogie signed a promissory note stating that she had received £5,000.00 for ‘exchanges monies’.
Imagine the shock when she returned from her vacation in Jamaica on Boxing Day to find that not only was the house ‘sold’ to a Mr. Singh who had offered £690,000 (higher than Mrs Stephenson who had offered £625.00), but she was not allowed to see a breakdown of costs or any part of the transaction. Instead she was told by her solicitor, Ms Jolaoso that before she came to her office she had to write and sign a letter stating that, “I paid First Start £125,000.00 for works carried out” and when she objected she was told herself and her son will be out on the streets if she did not. And, furthermore that ‘they; one has to assume this was the buyer, were only prepared to do that because the deadline to sell the house was by 28th December. It transpired later that the solicitor; Ms. Jolaoso had actually completed the sale on 18th December whilst Felicienne was aboard and had distributed the proceeds to Stanley Anyanarwo and Mr. Ensay and of course paid off the mortgage.
“A signed transfer document was signed but not by me; I had nothing to prove there was even a sale” said Mrs Blenman-Bogie.
When I tried to telephone Ms Jolaoso, she was never at her office and just didn’t return my calls said Felicienne. Eventually she closed her practice and moved away.
The £125,000.00 that Felicienne was given, she thought was rent in advance to stay in her house so she went back home, as advised by her solicitor, and waited for Mr Singh to get in touch. He never did. He was a property developer she was told who travelled constantly.
In early January her solicitor transferred £60,300.00 into her account and this, as it turned out, was paid exactly twenty days after the solicitor had completed the house sale on the 18th December 2007.
“I was in a daze not knowing what to do, it was a nightmare”. I didn’t know whether I should stay in the house or leave”. Not knowing what to do, she waited.
In 2009 her brother got a ‘phone call from the solicitor; since the house is still officially in his name, saying that the police had been alerted to some fraudulent activity which was associated with the property, and ‘they were coming’. Of course Felicienne welcomed the news because she felt hopeful that at last all the wrongdoings of her solicitor would be unmasked.
It was confirmed that there was no ‘Mr. Singh’, only the accountant (Mr. Patel) of her solicitor, Ms. Jolaoso who impersonated a buyer in order for her (Ms. Jolaoso) to acquire the house illegally. And, the transfer documents which Felicienne was supposed to have signed to facilitate the transaction in her absence were faked using her signature on the document to First Start she had been asked to write so that she would not be thrown out onto the streets.
Although this unmasking of truly villainous behaviour appeared promising, in that she, Mrs. Blenman-Bogie may be in a position to go back to court and resolve the situation with her house, things went from bad to worse.
After many attempts to take the case back to court, a court date was set whereby the case tried in Birmingham by Sir Justice Morgan, who ruled in favour of the Claimants; the Bank of Scotland to continue the eviction process. According to Mrs Blenman-Bogie, Judge Morgan profited financially from the sale of her house worth £800,000.000; because of his ruling, to the tune of £200,000.00. In her opinion, as she makes clear in the Youtube interview in 2016, the representatives for claimant; Bank of Scotland, Mr. Clegg their Barrister and Ms Rebecca O’Neil the detective that the claimant had put in charge of locating Mr. Singh but were never able to find him after more than 5 years; from 18th December 2007 to 2015, were able to come to an agreement with the judge whereby they agreed to put £200,000.00 in trust for Mr. Singh.
She claims that the barrister for Bank of Scotland stood in court and said that they gave Mr. Singh £655,000.00 to buy her house without accepting a transfer document or following the proper procedure, without Mr. Singh’s signature; apparently all this is borne out by the court transcripts, and without proper verification of his identity. No photographs were provided. Yet on the transfer documents they alleged that she signed the documents, though she vehemently denies this it states that they gave this £690,000.00. “How does that pan out?” exclaims Mrs Blenman-Bogie. The name on the property in 2006 was still the same name in 2015; surely it should have been in the name of Mr. Singh but it wasn’t.
While sitting through the testimony of the various persons involved in the case it became apparent to Mrs Blenman-Bogie that’ the judge, realising that Mr. Singh had not paid any money whatsoever, deemed it correct to allow the Bank of Scotland to claim £600,000.000 plus of the money what would be owed, if she apparently owed them the money; which she didn’t, because it was Mr. Singh who owed them the mortgage, which would have been £800,000.00 (the current value of the house) but the judge decided that if the Bank of Scotland would accept £655,000.00 or thereabouts, the odd £200,000.00; which would be the remainder of what Mr. Singh would have owed, this amount could go into a deed of trust for Mr. Singh on the property. Yet they haven’t found him or seen him since they supposedly gave him the money in 2007. Now if that isn’t odd, I don’t know what is?
“If a judge, after this case was put before two previous judges and they ruled in my favour – even though Judge Morgan first questioned by the claimants were going after me instead of Mr. Singh who owed them money, but now realising what this house was worth and that I was still in it, decided to allow the Bank to re-possess the property ended up with Judge Morgan getting £200,000.000 and not Mr. Singh because he could not be found” ….Mrs Blenman-Bogie (see YouTube Video), of course crooked solicitors can get away with anything.
Shortly after Judge Morgan’s ruling Mrs. Blenman_Bogie was forcibly dragged out of her house by bailiffs who broke her fingers and beat her as she struggled to hold on to her things. (Well documented by video entitled ‘Anatomy Of an Illegal Eviction is recorded on YouTube 6th March 2016’. The debate rages on that the Judge is alleged to have gotten over £200,000.00
Mrs. Blenman-Bogie is confident that the dealings of unscrupulous and greedy solicitors will get their comeuppance and she will be one day returned to her beloved home which still stands abandoned and derelict in the name of a new owner that has yet to move in.