We lost 60.000 GBP to Sourced Development Group
In keeping with our promise to share our investment journey while traveling the world on our sailing catamaran, today it’s time for an update on a property investment. Our most promising investment was with the Sourced Development Group.. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. The internet is always full of the amazing opportunities to be had. Once the social media companies are aware you are looking for investment opportunities, the ads just keep coming!
But are all those opportunities really that amazing?
Welcome to the real world. Unfortunately it doesn’t have much resemblance to the online world. But hopefully that isn’t news to anyone.
In any case, we had been working hard in the Middle East for 12 years, and the time came where we earned more than we knew what to do with. Thanks in part to the good job we were lucky enough to get, and in part to not needing to pay any income taxes at all.
The question then becomes, how do you manage the excess income, what are wise investment decisions and what are not.
How we found this property investment
We came in touch with a real estate broker company called ‘Sequre’, managed by Daniel J. and our dedicated contact person was Natalie B.
For quite a few years before we had actually saved up enough money to make an investment, we had been in touch with Natalie of Sequre to evaluate possible investment opportunities. The maths always looked very interesting and realistically achievable to us. Bear in mind, we didn’t have any experience with property investments, so we lacked the important skill to properly analyse an investment properties numbers. For that part, we probably relied too heavily on the extremely friendly and always helpful information provided by Sequre.
Long story short, when the time came to make an investment, the development of Kingsway Square was put forward to us by Sequre. A project by Sourced Development Group, in Liverpool.
The deal contained some nice perks, such as stamp duty paid by the developer, and gauranteed rental income for a certain amount of time. These perks sounded very good, but not unrealistic to us.
Included in the details mentioned was the completion which would take place in a very promising timeframe in the not too distant future. A payment of 30% as deposit was required, along with a Finders Fee to Sequre of 2000 GBP.
What was not revealed, was that this development was not even being built just yet. It was all still in the planning stage, with even a building permission NOT being granted yet. This could have alarmed us of the risk of the investment. But as we were not told this crucial bit of information, we didn’t know, and were under the impression that the build was progressing very well!
We have been avid fans of the show ‘I’m leaving’ aired on TV in the Netherlands. It follows people’s journey of emigrating out of the Netherlands, buying land or property abroad, often with big plans te develop a B&B or camping site. But the planning permission is ALWAYS the problem, this is simply a risk that people are willing to take. Sometimes it gets granted, sometimes it takes 3 or more years to be granted, and other times it is not granted at all. We always wondered why people would take such a risk. But, we were unaware that we were taking on such a risk ourselves!!
The 30% deposit came to a total of 60.000 GBP which had to be paid to be able to sign a contract for the purchase of an apartment in the Kingsway Square Development.
We paid it and waited.
And waited some more..
Obviously, the planning permission never happened, COVID also came in the way leading to further delays. From what we understand, Liverpool Councils building requirements changed in the meantime, which meant Sourced had to again apply for new planning permission, leading to more delays.
The apartments measurements had to be adjusted according to the new regulations, which meant according to Sourced, that the cost of the development changed. This meant current investors had to sign on for a bigger investment, or choose to opt out.
In the end, after such massive delays, we chose to opt out, had a termination agreement signed by both parties in July 2022, with a promise in it for our funds to be refunded within 30 days. This never happened.
Meanwhile, the renewed building requirements, and re-marketing of the development, were not successful, which ultimately lead to the filing for bankruptcy of the development company.
How we lost our 60.000 GBP deposit
This is where we fully understood that the company responsible for the development, was a project by Sourced Development, but run under a separate limited company. This way trying to legally avoid any responsibility for the huge amount of lost investments.
Sourced Development continues to operate other projects, while so many investors funds in the Kingsway Square Development are simply gone. Look for example at Regent Plaza..
So why do we publish this here? Well we simply want others to learn from our mistakes. We don’t think this sequence of events is fair in any way, and we believe our finders fee and 30% deposit should be paid back in full.
Disappointed with Sourced Development Group
We want to warn anyone considering to invest in the Sourced Development Group, to reconsider their choice. Hopefully those looking for a review on Sourced Development Group will be able to find this article. Or a Trust Pilot search for Sourced Development Group could lead here also.
And we want to make it known that the ex employees of Sequre can not be trusted. The company of Sequre who ‘found’ us this opportunity and charged us the ‘Finders Fee’, eventually didn’t return our calls anymore, and silently ceased to exist. They did not bother informing us of closing down their company, and clearly had zero intention to pay back the ‘Finders Fee’ for this very risky investment that they sold as an amazing opportunity.
We will admit, the Finders Fee was marked as being ‘non refundable’. However, being sold a wonderful investment opportunity that turns out to actually be a very risky undertaking, is simply a very dishonest practice, which should be punished or rectified by the involved individuals.
Luckily we didn’t put all our eggs in one basket, as obviously we did do a ‘little bit’ of research before starting our investment journey. And that’s the reason why we were able to still continue our adventure, despite this obvious big setback.
Hopefully a more inspiring article next time. And let this be a reminder that we like to keep things real! There’s no point in selling fluff to anyone right!
Last but not least, let it be clear that we mean no harm to Sourced Development Group or anyone for that matter. All we want is for the truth to be known, so that people can make informed investment decisions.
Happy Sailing – The Dutch Sailing Family
