The Financial Conduct Authority v London Property Investments (UK) Limited (t/a LPI Emergency Property Finance) & Ors

This was not a technical dispute about a single document. It was a broad enforcement case about a business model aimed at homeowners in distress. The FCA brought proceedings concerning consumers who were facing arrears, repossession pressure or other serious financial problems and who turned to LPI for emergency refinancing help.

The court said LPI’s model commonly involved urgent calls and meetings, signature packs, fee declarations and title restrictions. In some cases, LPI helped arrange or try to arrange a remortgage. In others, consumers ended up selling their homes to NPI and renting them back. The 2024 judgment followed an earlier 2022 judgment that had already found contraventions in relation to an initial group of consumers.

The central dispute was whether LPI and NPI had carried on regulated activities without being authorised or exempt under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. The earlier judgment had already found contraventions for the original group. This later judgment had to decide two main things: whether similar contraventions were proved for 26 additional consumers, and what relief should be granted across the cases.

For the remortgage cases, the court examined whether LPI had agreed to arrange regulated mortgage contracts, made arrangements for them, or made arrangements with a view to them. In a small number of cases, it also considered whether LPI had effectively advised on a particular mortgage product. The court then had to decide what was just by way of restitution or remedial orders.

The legal issue was whether the defendants had contravened the general prohibition in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 by carrying on regulated activities in the UK without authorisation or exemption, and whether the two individual defendants were knowingly concerned in those contraventions. The court also had to decide the right remedy where consumers had suffered loss or where agreements were unenforceable.

A key part of the analysis was whether the loans in question were regulated mortgage contracts rather than falling outside the regime through one of the recognised exclusions. The court also considered the difference between arranging a transaction, making arrangements with a view to a transaction, and advising on the merits of a particular product. Those distinctions mattered because some activities can be regulated even if the mortgage never completes.

The court broadly reached the same conclusions for the additional remortgage cases as the earlier court had reached for the original group. It found that LPI’s activities concerned regulated mortgage contracts or intended regulated mortgage contracts and that the relevant exclusions did not apply in the way LPI’s documents suggested.

The court said the borrowers were trying to save homes they lived in, or intended to live in, and that some declarations used by LPI were untrue and part of making the lending appear unregulated.

The court found that, in most of the additional cases, LPI had carried on specified activities by agreeing to arrange remortgages, making arrangements with a view to remortgages, and often arranging for remortgages to be entered into. In only two of the additional cases did the court find implied advice on a particular product. It also found Tony Stevens and Daniel Stevens were knowingly concerned in the contraventions.

If your business helps consumers obtain property-backed finance, this case is a practical warning against relying on labels. A business may think it is only introducing borrowers to brokers or lenders. But if it takes instructions, gathers documents, secures signatures, sources products, pushes transactions forward, or uses legal controls over the property to secure payment, a court may view the business very differently.

The judgment also shows that trying to frame a residential rescue loan as a business-purpose or investment loan may fail if the real purpose is to keep a person in their home. The court looked at the substance of the arrangement, the borrower’s intended use of the property and the overall business model. It did not treat declarations as conclusive where they did not reflect reality.

Businesses in this area should treat compliance as an operating issue, not just a legal footnote. The court’s reasoning shows how ordinary sales behaviour, admin steps and fee collection methods can become evidence of regulated activity. A careful review should cover the whole customer journey, from first marketing contact to payment collection and post-transaction enforcement.

Where your customers are homeowners in distress, the risk level is higher. The court referred to the consumer protection purpose of the legislation and the expectation that consumers need suitable advice and information. That makes it important to review not only permissions and exemptions, but also how your business presents options and handles vulnerable customers.

The outcome matters commercially because the court did not stop at declaring contraventions. It considered restitution and remedial orders across many individual cases. In the remortgage cases, the court accepted that restitution would generally be the remedy, including for fees paid and losses caused by the unauthorised activity. Where restrictions remained on title, the court considered remedial relief to remove them.

The judgment also explains that the amount of a restitution order must be just, having regard to losses and, where identifiable, profits. For a small business, that means regulatory breaches can create repayment exposure well beyond a fine or warning. The business may lose the benefit of its agreements, have to unwind practical steps it took, and face claims tied to customer losses. Directors and managers may also face personal consequences if they were knowingly involved.