Worried people who have invested hundreds of thousands of pounds into troubled Liverpool hotel firm Signature Living have shared their fears they may never get their money back.
With some having ploughed life savings into the company's schemes across Liverpool and further afield, they have spoken about the firm's failure to pay them returns, and in some cases, return to them their original investments when contractually required to do so.
That includes an Irish investor who said if he doesn't get his £300,000 returned, then he's "finished" - and he hasn't told his wife about the situation.
The complaints relate to various properties owned by , who run hotels and venues throughout Liverpool, the 海角视频 and further afield.
Becky Horton said she is owed £77,000 by the firm after investing in the 60 Old Hall Street development back in 2017.
But Ms Horton, who was making the investment through her newly-created firm Lowton Property, hasn’t received a penny back from Signature Living, and is “appalled” at what has happened since.
Ms Horton, who lives in London, said when she took out the investment, she was told it would be completed by the second financial quarter of 2018. But the development remains unfinished, and she doesn’t think she’ll get her money back.
Here's a of every property Signature Living own in Liverpool
That’s despite “hundreds and hundreds” of messages she’s sent to the company, chasing information “daily”.
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She said on more than one occasion, officials from the firm told her she would get her money back. That included in September, when, having demanded a full refund, she claims she was told by Signature Living they would return it “shortly”.
Lawrence Kenwright reveals plans to sell 30 James Street and The Shankly:
But Ms Horton suffered a collapsed lung on October 2, so action since then has been difficult - and she’s still not seen a return.
“The stress of it all has contributed to my health.
“They told me ‘please don’t stress about the situation. We will 100% get your funds back’.
“But I have chased them on a daily basis, and still nothing. It’s disgusting.”
She is preparing to take legal action against the firm.
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“It’s appalling. Once all this is sorted, we will close the property company. This has really burnt our fingers.
“I know they have cash flow problems, but I am still deeply disappointed that they have gone back on their word time after time.
“I went with them because I thought they were a reputable firm. We were so excited - we were told what a great thing we were doing, but it’s all gone wrong.
“It was our first time investing, but nothing has happened with our company since and we are still fighting to get our money back.”
Earlier this week, an investor how Signature Living's failure to pay her back made her dying mother's final months of life tremendously difficult, with also demanding they get the money they're owed.
The company's owner Lawrence Kenwright has said investors would eventually get their money back and asked them to trust him.
He said his was currently unable to repay its investors as "any bit of spare money that the company has goes on the building sites".
An Ireland-based investor is another to speak out today, telling the ECHO he cannot sleep at night for fears over his £300,000 of investments in Signature schemes.
He originally invested two payments of £50,000 in Signature's flagship Liverpool hotel, The Shankly in 2018.
After receiving good returns on those investments, he decided to invest bigger sums in other projects.
He pumped £150,000 into the firm's Lanyon Hotel in Belfast - based in the former Crumlin Road Courthouse building.
He also invested a further £140,000 into Wroxhall Abbey in Warwick, which Signature reportedly acquired in August.
He explained why he recently became concerned about his sizeable investments.
He said: "I got a bit worried when the staff who I had been dealing with for all my investments told me they were being let go.
"I then got a message from Lawrence Kenwright that said Signature were unable to 'unlock my funds' and pay me back on time because of problems with other projects."
He said his fears grew larger when he read news reports that the Wroxhall Abbey business he had invested £140,000 had gone into administration.
A spokesman for Signature Living told the BBC that it had actually only taken out a temporary licence agreement to run the Warwick venue for eight weeks between August and September - after which the management had reverted back to the previous owners.
This has left him more concerned and confused.
Speaking about the impact the situation with Signature Living is having on him, he said: "I haven't slept for the past three nights.
"I can't tell my wife about this - she wants to book a holiday but we can't while I don't know what is happening with my money and I can't tell her why.
"The more I am reading about this and other people's issues, the more worried I am getting.
"If I don't get this money back, I'm finished."
A note sent from Mr Kenwright to the investor and seen by the ECHO said there had been “various planning delays” with Belfast City Council, but that the firm was expecting to receive planning permission next month.
Those delays, however, have “severely impacted” progress towards completion of the projects, and Mr Kenwright told the Irish investor in the letter his funds could not be unlocked until the site had been finished.
In a statement to the ECHO earlier this week, a spokesman for Signature Living said "reshaping" the business would mean investors getting their money back.
The firm's response read: “Signature Living operates a significant hotel portfolio across the 海角视频. In recent years we have grown rapidly in size and scale. The company employs hundreds of people and our hotels welcome thousands of visitors every year.
"Our funding model has not been gained from high street banks or from funds but from sophisticated individual investors who have invested their funds into stand alone sites."
Another investor from Nottinghamshire said they are owed £200k by Signature Living after buying two units at the Shankly Hotel four years ago.
At the time, the investor, who did not want to be named, thought it would be an “interesting opportunity”.
“I tried to do my due diligence, and one thing led to another and I ended up investing in two units.
“They were very cooperative at the time.”
The investor said after initially receiving promised quarterly returns “without much hassle”, it became more difficult after the first year passed.
“I had to chase them up a lot after that. Every time a payment was due, I would have to ring them up and email them countless times. That meant it became a much harder process and my patience began to wear thin.”
They said they’ve sent countless requests to receive the money back, and have demanded the full amount - but have not received any return on investment since September 2018.
After the third year passed, the Nottinghamshire investor began to look into the firm’s buy back clause - which they said was agreed at the outset.
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“It seemed a bit slow going at first, but we did get some paperwork back from them on that front.
“But then it all went a bit quiet and we stopped hearing back from them again.
“I finally got through to someone in May and they told me I would get paid back at the end of May, but still nothing has happened.”
The investor said since then, they have received a few emails “not saying anything specifically” - telling them the firm is “dealing with it, we are doing this and that”.
The investor then heard that Signature Living , but was still being told it was “committed” to returning the investor’s money.
“I was investing this money for my kids. As far as I was concerned, it was going to be a sound investment, offering a nice return with it.
“But it’s been very stressful and has caused me a great deal of anxiety that’s not needed.
“I don’t really know what I can do now. People need to be wary of investing in Signature Living.”
As is widely known, Mr Kenwright also has an expansive portfolio of properties outside of Liverpool, including in Cardiff, where devastated investors spoke out earlier this week about being owed “thousands”.
Signature Living took on the old Coal Exchange building after Cardiff Council deemed the building unsafe and invoked emergency powers to make it safe.
to investors who have ploughed large sums of money into it and said regular payouts made to them have stopped.
One, from south Wales, who put £100,000 into the scheme said she not had a return on her money for around a year.
The 61-year-old said the money was meant to fund her through retirement, but she is beginning to think her money "is in trouble".
In May the grilled Mr Kenwright in an interview and told him of 'horror stories' we had been told about investors who had not been paid any returns on their investments and who said they had been continually ignored by the company.
At the time Mr Kenwright told the ECHO that only a small number of his 1,000 investors have ever had any problems and insisted the company was communicating with its investors.
At the time he announced that he was putting his two most famous hotels - The Shankly and 30 James Street (both based in Liverpool) up for sale and said investors would get their money back once these properties had been sold on.
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There has been no news on the sale of those hotels since that point.
The statement from Signature Living sent to the ECHO earlier this week continued: "Sadly due to Brexit we have seen a slow down in sales and funding of these units, coupled with the fact that we deal in old listed buildings that we look to repurpose as hotels, which can often run foul of quite strict planning process's which can also cause delays.
"It is our intention to sell or refinance many of these various sites over the coming months to ensure our investors gain their return in full.
"In the same way that we have with 30 James St and Signature Living Hotel, both these sites were fully funded by individual investors who have now been fully repaid with all of their return on investment intact.
"As we have previously stated, we are reshaping the business by selling some of our assets to insure all of investors are fully repaid and Signature Living can fund itself via its own profits. Signature Living is a profitable business with a solid and secure future ahead.”
Signature Living was contacted for a further response.