We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Penny Gell please sign in and let everyone know.

Information regarding property owned by companies being dissolved by voluntary strike off, where the mortgage charges are outstanding but the properties have been sold.

We're waiting for Penny Gell to read recent responses and update the status.

Dear Government Legal Department,

This is a FOIA 2000 request.

What information do you hold regarding the following:

The companies listed below were all dissolved by voluntary strike off on 22 September 2020. They were all owned by the same group of people. The mortgage charges filed at Companies House are still outstanding and are all in favour of the same bank - Coutts & Co. The properties were sold several years before the companies were dissolved.

As the properties no longer belonged to the companies being dissolved, did your department deal with them?

If you did deal with them, do you have information as to why the mortgage charges are outstanding and whether the properties were sold by the companies or by the bank? If you do not have this information who does?

Is it your practice to write to the company being dissolve at the current registered office address filed at Companies House, or to the registered office address entered on the property's title register?

Do you obtain property titles from Find a Property, Portal or official copies?

If you wrote to the companies listed below, which address did you use - 65 New Cavendish Street London W1G 7LS or 64 New Cavendish Street W1G8TB?

The information below, including the addresses, postcodes and title numbers is as stated in the charges documents filed at Companies House.

Were you able to find all these properties?

Leonard One Ltd (07821990) and Leonard Two Ltd (07821997)
Freehold property 96-98 Leonard Street EC2A 4RH
Freehold property 100-106 Leonard Street EC2A 4RH

Golden Property One Ltd (06723904) and Golden Property Two Lt (06747329)
FH property 19 Golden Square W1F

Cranwood St One Ltd (05872361) and Cranwood St Two Ltd (05872312)
FH property 1-2 Cranwood Street London EC1V 9PE Title No NGL487878.

Nix One Ltd (07714690) and Nix Two Ltd (07714684)
FH property 154 Clerkenwell RoadmEC1R 5AB

Gretview Ltd (04168467)
LH Grimaldi Park House, Pentonville Road N1 Title No NGL489152
LH Land and Buildings at 154A Pentonville Road N1

Yours faithfully,

Penny Gell

FOI, Government Legal Department

Thank you for your email.  We will get back to you in due course.
Kind regards,
GLD FOI Team

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Laura Antoniou, Government Legal Department

Thank you for your e-mail of 10 May 2021.

Your request is being considered under the Freedom of Information Act
2000.

I will write to you again within 20 working days.

Yours faithfully
Laura Antoniou
for the Treasury Solicitor

 

 

 

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Laura Antoniou, Government Legal Department

1 Attachment

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your recent correspondence to the Government Legal
Department, in which you made a Freedom of Information Act request. Our
response to your request is attached. Please note that this email does not
form part of the Department's formal FOI response.

 

Some of your queries concerned the work of the Bona Vacantia Division
(“The Division”) in general, rather than being requests for information
held.  I should clarify that property transferred prior to the company’s
dissolution would not vest Bona Vacantia and the Treasury Solicitor would
have no legal standing to deal with it or comment upon such activity.

 

Should the Division wish to contact the former directors of a dissolved
company, it will do so using the appointments information filed at
Companies House, unless we have already been informed from a reliable
source of a change of address for the individual.

 

When properties are referred to the Division, the referrer should provide
Official Copies in accordance with the relevant guidelines which can be
found on our website
[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/collection....
 The Division may also conduct searches with HM Land Registry.

If you are unhappy with the level of service you have received in relation
to your request you may ask for an internal review within two months of
the receipt of this response. If you wish to do this you should write to
the above address. It will help ensure your complaint is properly
considered if when requesting an internal review you also set out the
reasons why you are unhappy with the service you have received.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

I hope that this is of assistance.

Yours sincerely,

Laura Antoniou
for the Treasury Solicitor

 

 

 

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Dear Laura Antoniou,

Thank you for your response.

Is the Government Legal Department involved in the dissolution of companies that do not own property?

If the Government Legal Department deal with, in any way, the dissolution of companies with outstanding mortgage charges, I am requesting under the FOAI 2000, all information you hold on the companies listed in my request. If the Government Legal Department do not, who does?

Leonard One Ltd (07821990) and Leonard Two Ltd (07821997)
Freehold property 96-98 Leonard Street EC2A 4RH
Freehold property 100-106 Leonard Street EC2A 4RH

Golden Property One Ltd (06723904) and Golden Property Two Lt (06747329)
FH property 19 Golden Square W1F

Cranwood St One Ltd (05872361) and Cranwood St Two Ltd (05872312)
FH property 1-2 Cranwood Street London EC1V 9PE Title No NGL487878.

Nix One Ltd (07714690) and Nix Two Ltd (07714684)
FH property 154 Clerkenwell RoadmEC1R 5AB

Gretview Ltd (04168467)
LH Grimaldi Park House, Pentonville Road N1 Title No NGL489152
LH Land and Buildings at 154A Pentonville Road N1

Yours sincerely,

Penny Gell

Dear Laura Antoniou,

I am requesting all information the Government Legal Department holds on the dissolved companies listed in my request.

If the Government Legal Department does not hold this information who does?

If the Government Legal Department has the information but is refusing to give it to me please give the reason for refusal.

Yours sincerely,

Penny Gell

Dear Laura Antoniou,

I am requesting an internal review. You have not provided me with the information you hold on the dissolved companies listed in my FOIA request. I am not asking for comment, I am asking for information.

Yours sincerely,

Penny Gell

Laura Antoniou, Government Legal Department

Dear Penny,

Could you please confirm which BVFOI reference this originally related to please?

Thank you

Kind regards

Laura

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Dear Laura Antoniou,

BVFOI/251/21

Yours sincerely,

Penny Gell

Laura Antoniou, Government Legal Department

Many thanks Penny.

Kind regards

Laura

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Laura Antoniou, Government Legal Department

Thank you for your e-mail of 17 June 2021.

Your request is being considered under the Freedom of Information Act
2000.

Yours faithfully
Laura Antoniou
for the Treasury Solicitor

 

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Laura Antoniou, Government Legal Department

1 Attachment

Dear Madam,

Please find attached response to the Internal Review.

Yours sincerely,

Laura Antoniou
for the Treasury Solicitor

 

 

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Catherine Edwards, Government Legal Department

Dear Madam

Further to your email of 10th June 2021 below to my colleague, Laura Antoniou, may I first sincerely apologise for the delay in acknowledging receipt. Your earlier request for information dated 17th May 2021 was responded to on 21st May 2021 in which Ms Antoniou confirmed that we did not hold the information you had requested. I wrongly misunderstood Ms Antoniou's subsequent email as the confirmation that the response had been sent out but I now see she was attaching your further email of 10th June 2021.

Firstly, having already explained in the response dated 21st May 2021 to your request made under the Freedom of Information Act that the Treasury Solicitor does not hold the information you had requested relating to the above, I confirm that the position remains the same, namely that we are not holding any information whatsoever on the companies you have referred to other than the information you provided yourself in your original request for information.

The companies you enquired about were:

1. Leonard One Ltd (07821990) and Leonard Two Ltd (07821997) Freehold property 96-98 Leonard Street EC2A 4RH Freehold property 100-106 Leonard Street EC2A 4RH

2. Golden Property One Ltd (06723904) and Golden Property Two Lt (06747329) FH property 19 Golden Square W1F

3. Cranwood St One Ltd (05872361) and Cranwood St Two Ltd (05872312) FH property 1-2 Cranwood Street London EC1V 9PE Title No NGL487878.

4. Nix One Ltd (07714690) and Nix Two Ltd (07714684) FH property 154 Clerkenwell RoadmEC1R 5AB

5. Gretview Ltd (04168467) LH Grimaldi Park House, Pentonville Road N1 Title No NGL489152 LH Land and Buildings at 154A Pentonville Road N1

I should clarify that the Treasury Solicitor is the correct Crown nominee to deal with as bona vacantia (meaning vacant or ownerless goods) any beneficial property and rights of the above companies situate in England and Wales and not disposed of prior to their respective dissolutions. However, your initial enquiry relating to the above companies suggests that the interests had been assigned out of the company some years prior to their respective dissolutions. That being the case, the assets would not have vested bona vacantia at the time they dissolved since they would not have been beneficial assets of the company but beneficial assets of the assignees to whom the properties were transferred.

In so far as your request asks who else may hold information on the companies listed, this is not a request for information within the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act as it relates to information that is or may be held by others.

I can confirm that the Treasury Solicitor would not, and does not hold information on other persons that may hold information about the companies you have listed. If you have not done so already, you may wish to make enquiries with Companies House where the companies would have been registered, since Companies House should hold historic information in the filing history against each company record which you can request via its public register at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati.... Please note that I have not made any enquiries with Companies House in respect of the listed companies.

I should also clarify that the Treasury Solicitor is not an agent or an officer of the dissolved companies and she does not step into the shoes of the companies in the same way that a liquidator or administrator might but receives any beneficial property and rights of the companies situate in England and Wales at the time they dissolved, as a successor in title.

The Division which acts on behalf of the Treasury Solicitor in such matters is not furnished with a company's books and papers on its dissolution. Our function is to deal with the remaining beneficial assets of the companies at the point they dissolved but we can only do so if those assets are brought to our attention. In this case, it would appear from your initial referral to us that that the assets had been disposed of some years prior to dissolution and so there would be no bona vacantia interest in those assets for the Treasury Solicitor to comment upon and we are not aware of any other interests that did remain.

I am sorry that we are unable to assist you in your quest for information regarding the below companies but should you identify any assets of the companies that were not assigned out prior to their respective dissolutions, please do not hesitate to bring those interests to our attention by emailing us at [email address]. For information about how we deal with the remaining assets of dissolved companies, you may wish to visit our Dissolved Company Guidelines which can be found at www.gov.uk/bonavacantia or directly to: https://www.gov.uk/government/collection....

Kindest regards

Catherine

Catherine Edwards
Policy & Complex Case Group
Bona Vacantia Division
Government Legal Department
PO Box 2119, CROYDON CR90 9QU

DX: 325801 Croydon 51

T: 020 7210 4700
F: 020 7210 3104
E: [email address]

A copy of our Privacy Notice can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Penny Gell please sign in and let everyone know.