Developer Jailed for Bridging Loan Fraud

It has come to light that property developer Franco Campagna and his conveyancer friend, David Kitching have been jailed on eight charges of fraud for misusing bridging loan finance. Franco Campagna was using short term bridging loans to buy to let properties which he then sold onto his clients.  This was all going well until he faced financial problems when the economic crisis hit. His clients then managed to secure themselves finance to pay off the short term loans, but Campagna managed to persuade David Kitching to use the funds to pay off loans on some of the other properties in his portfolio. Campagna and Kitching had been friends since the late 1990's and had done over 250 deals together, Campagna actually suggested Kitching to his clients as a conveyancer.  Kitching proceeded to produce false title certificates in order to get the funds released; this is believed to be a total of over £500,000. To this day the misused bridging loan funds still haven't been located, leaving Kitchings company facing over £700,000 in civil court claims against them. Frank Campagna was sentenced to two years and four months jail time on eight counts of fraud, while David Kitching admitted guilt and was sentenced to twelve months in jail.