Realty goes to court over surcharges dispute

One of the companies behind the £250m redevelopment of Manchester’s Boddington’s brewery is being sued for £1.7m on an unrelated property deal. Yousef Tishbi’s Realty Estates is being sued by a former joint venture partner for unpaid interest and surcharges on a loan that it took out to finance the purchase of a 115-year-old Grade-II listed hospital in Cheadle. In 2001, Tishbi teamed up with mail-order millionaire Nigel Alliance to buy Barnes hospital from the Manchester Health Trust. The pair planned to convert the site into a luxury residential development, the profit from which would be split 50:50 between the two. Alliance claims that he agreed to provide £4.05m in finance for the acquisition in return for which he would receive interest of 1.2% above the base rate and a further 1% annual surcharge on the loan. However, following the sale of the hospital – which had not been redeveloped – last year for £10m, and subsequent repayment of the loan and just over £1m in profits on the sale, Alliance claims that Tishbi has failed and is refusing to pay interest and surcharges on the loan, totalling £1.7m. Tishbi is defending the claim. A spokesperson for Realty Estates said: We are hoping that this will be settles very shortly and we have no further comment.” Realty is developing Boddington’s Brewery with Manchester-based Ask Developments. The pair plan to turn the former brewery into a 500,000 sq ft scheme.