Lettings agency boss spared jail for fraudulent transfer from failing company

Creditors left unpaid after letting business Dylan Lettings Worldwide Ltd went into liquidation, with just £3.48 left in the bank.

Lettings boss Ghanshyam Sarup Batra has been spared jail after receiving a suspended sentence for transferring company funds after control of the company had passed to a receiver.

Batra, 63, of Sedge Hill, Roydon, Essex, was director of Dylan Lettings Worldwide Limited. The London-based agency managed short-stay rental apartments marketed as Aparthotels but went into liquidation after it ran into financial difficulties.

The court heard that Batra had been ordered to pay more than £6.5 million after mortgage lenders called in personal debts. Within an hour of that order, £50,000 was transferred from the company account to his personal account.

The transfers continued over a four-day period while the company’s assets were still being transferred to a receiver, taking the total moved to £105,690.

Batra claimed he was entitled to withdraw the funds, but a jury at the Old Bailey unanimously found him guilty of one count of fraud in anticipation of winding-up under the Insolvency Act 1986.

This was a deliberate and dishonest act, and the jury saw through his attempts to justify it.”

According to Chief Investigator Chris Wood, “Ghanshyam Sarup Batra knew exactly what he was doing when he emptied the company’s bank account. This was a deliberate and dishonest act, and the jury saw through his attempts to justify it.”

Batra, who had already been disqualified as a company director for seven years in 2021, was handed a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months.

When Dylan Lettings Worldwide went into liquidation, insolvency records show no assets were realised, and no dividends were paid to creditors. Batra has since been declared bankrupt.

According to The Standard, the Insolvency Service is now seeking confiscation of funds under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.