Funds from Sixfields loan recovered

West Northamptonshire Council has recovered almost £466k by selling a property previously owned by Christina Cardoza, the wife of former Northampton Town Football Club Chairman David Cardoza.

In 2013 Northampton Borough Council (NBC) loaned £10.25m to the club for construction of a new East Stand, but in 2014 it became apparent that most of the money had been misappropriated.

Through its investigations, NBC traced some of the funds back to the Cardozas and in January 2019 High Court action enabled the council to register a charge against property owned by the family.

Christina Cardoza was given until June 2021 to pay what she owed.

In April 2021 West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) became responsible for pursuing the funds as part of a merger of the former borough, district and county councils in Northamptonshire.

Mrs Cardoza failed to make payment by the deadline and chose to leave the property in Eastbourne rather than incur the further expense of possession proceedings.

WNC sold the property for £765k and to complete the sale in the buyer’s timeline and to avoid the risk of losing the sale – council Leader, Cllr Jonathan Nunn, used his executive powers to approve the sale.

Following payment of just over £300k outstanding on the mortgage, WNC received almost £466k, which will be paid against the inherited Sixfields loan debt.

Cllr Nunn said: “The situation with the property sale moved quickly and it was important that we acted to accept the offer and ensure the greatest level of return.

“We certainly won’t be attempting to claim a big victory around this, as the appropriate governance should have been in place to ensure it never went missing in the first place, but I can assure people that much better governance and diligence is in place.

“There have also been legal and other costs involved in recovering money, of course. Nevertheless, we hope that people will be glad to know that further public money has recently been recovered.”

A report on the sale, which provides full details of the decision, will be brought to WNC’s Cabinet on Tuesday 14 June.