Northants company director disqualified after £50,000 Bounce Back Loan paid into personal bank account

A Northamptonshire entrepreneur struck off from being a company director has said a ‘genuine mistake’ led to a government-backed Bounce Back Loan (BBL) being paid into his personal bank account.

Paul David Andreff, 50, had to step down as a director of three county companies after The Insolvency Service disqualified him for six years in a ruling last year.

The service said that in May 2020 Mr Andreff caused Elm Heritage of Oundle Ltd to obtain a government BBL totalling £50,000 but the ‘moneys’ were not used in their entirety for the ‘economic benefit of the business and/or its creditors, contrary to their terms’.

Mr Andreff has admitted that the decision to use his personal account for the payment, and the subsequent investigation, led to his world ‘tumbling down’.

He said: “The Insolvency Team didn’t like me putting it into my personal account. It was a genuine mistake. I didn’t even think about it.”

The ruling said that, on May 14, 2020, he submitted an application to the bank for a BBL in the sum of £50,000. Within the BBL application he declared that the BBL would be used to provide economic benefit to the business and would be used wholly for business purposes and not personal purposes.

A BBL of £50,000 was paid into Elm Heritage of Oundle Ltd’s bank account four days later – before the loan the account balance had been overdrawn by £6.52.

On May 26, 2020, £49,000 was paid directly to him via bank transfer.

He told The Insolvency Service that the £49,000 was used to repay his director’s loan account. When Elm Heritage of Oundle Ltd went into liquidation on December 21, 2020, the company owed £49,976.79 of the BBL, which remains unpaid.

Mr Andreff, a builder and the former landlord of Ashton’s Chequered Skipper pub near Oundle, has also stepped away from his construction and nursery businesses. He was banned from being a director for six years starting on November 19, 2022.

He says he used the BBL to refurbish the Ashton hostelry, that he took over in 2019, using his specialist construction company Elm Heritage of Oundle to restore the thatched building.

He said: “We had a string of unfortunate events. We (Elm Heritage of Oundle Ltd) were owed £267,000 – before Covid. We had the restaurant running at the same time. We had a BBL [with] which we renovated the whole property. The only problem was Elm Heritage, in the midst of Covid employees were laid off but paid. We had a lot of people demanding all the insurance and costs. The Bounce Back Loan was taken out. Because I didn’t have a business debit card I put it over to my personal account.

"I have lost all my businesses. No nursery, no building, no restaurant. It all came tumbling down. We employed 50 people across the three businesses."

Mr Andreff says it’s particularly painful as he sees the pub from his village home every day and is reminded of what he’s lost.

He said: “It was a bit harsh. I put so much work time and effort into making those a viable businesses. I didn’t buy Ferraris or anything like that. Every day I drive by the Chequered Skipper. It’s soul destroying.”