A mortgage broker who lied about customers’ salaries to live up to his boast, “every lender, every time”, admitted cheating the taxman out of £115,000.
Asim Hussain, 42, who owns Lifestyle Mortgages in Southall, west London, exaggerated his clients’ jobs and pay packets.
He even helped his wife Saira Hussain get a £98,000 home loan on a flat in Slough, Berks, Southwark Crown Court was told.
Many of his clients did not know Hussain was using false documents to process their applications.
Hussain was warned by Judge Michael Grieve that the “near inevitable sentence” that he could expect was a custodial one.
He admitted to cheating Revenue & Customs out of £114,942.28 in corporation tax.
His friend, solicitor Azhar Khan, 43, was accused of inflating his pay by almost £30,000 after turning to Hussain for help with his application.
However, Khan was cleared of the charge after telling the jury how he was duped by his associate.
The pair have been close friends since university and Khan, who ran London-based firm City Law, initially represented Hussain at police interviews.
Khan had applied for a mortgage for his home in Middlesex in 2004 and enlisted Hussain for help.
Bogus payslips from his job with a solicitor’s firm were used to secure the deal with a salary boosted from £42,000 a year to £73,000 a year, the court heard.
Lee Karu QC, for Hussain, insisted he was a “very, very small cog in a very, very big machine”, and said banks were desperate to hand out cash in the pre-crash climate between 2004 and 2008.
Hussain, of west London, had been convicted of six counts of furnishing false information in an earlier trial in May.
He will be sentenced on both matters on 31 July.
Khan, of northwest London, was cleared of a single count of furnishing false information. He will appear on 16 September for a plea and case management hearing in relation to another charge of cheating public revenue. Khan is due to stand trial on 16 November.
