Sorry not to have responded earlier. I have to be honest and fair, I am reluctant to give financial or legal advice.

E-mail to editor@jacothenorth.net

I’ll help if I can. What do you want to know?

Thank you for that info, I will definitely be diving deeper into this story and this information is very helpful for her to plan her next moves. I sincerely hope justice will be served to all criminals involved.

As you probably know, the man behind the project, Gavin Lee Woodhouse, is a crook. I believe legal proceedings are ongoing.

The solicitors offering to buy the flat your friend inherited are either working for Woodhouse, trying get money together to offer to his creditors in the hope of reducing the inevitable jail sentences; or, more likely, they’re working for the liquidators, trying to recoup something for those same creditors. Though in such cases, first claim on any money recouped is usually with banks, tax authorities, and other ‘secured’ creditors. Woodhouse’s victims would almost certainly be considered ‘unsecured’.

Your friend’s late husband made a bad investment. An offer to buy the lease of a room, in a building in a distressed state, may be the best she’s going to get. Because the hotel has been empty for quite a few years, it had a fire, and of course it’s deteriorating. Unless a buyer steps in pretty quickly it will be declared unsafe and demolished.

that’s exactly what I was thinking when I checked the property location and didn’t find any evidence of demand for dormitories. By the way that was the only comment he made in passing about this investment before his death, but the whole thing is beyond sketchy indeed. My friend has been receiving emails from solicitors meant for her husband offering to sell the “property in disrepair” (for significantly less than the 50k pounds he originally paid obviously), but the legalities are all so confusing. If there is anyone else in the same situation please contact me to compare notes.

I’m surprised to hear that Michał Piasecki planned to rent rooms to “UK students”. There is no college or university anywhere near Fishguard. And I’m fairly sure that renting out to students would have contravened the conditions of any lease.

As for Brazil, it’s way outside my remit. I focus on Wales.