Whitegates, part of The Property Franchise Group (TPFG), has closed its branches in Charnwood and in Leicester City Centre after TPFG terminated its franchisee agreement with Mitul Gadhia.
Property Industry Eye understands that Gadhia is now operating from the former Whitegates City Centre office as an estate agency called Smooth.
Although listed on Rightmove, Smooth does not seem to be showing any properties, while its new website, which is currently under construction, displays a holding message – ‘coming soon’.
A spokesperson for TPFG told EYE: “Whitegates can confirm that it has terminated its arrangements with Mitul Gadhia. No further comment will be made at this time.”
Gadhia, who previously owned two Martin & Co franchises, launched into estate agency in 2012 at the age of 22.
In 2017, at the age of 27, he became the TPFG’s largest franchisee in terms of office numbers following the purchase of a five-branch business – tripling the size of his property portfolio and taking on 35 new staff.
Gadhia’s Whitegates Leicester purchased Taylors, a well-established estate and lettings agency which had been operating since 1992 and they at the time had five offices across Leicester and Loughborough.
But last year Miresh Property Company Limited, which owns the Whitegates’ franchises in Leicester, Sileby, Syston (which was Taylors/Whitegates) and Broughton Astley, went into liquidation.
The appointment of a voluntary liquidator was published on 19th September 2020 by Companies House.
See below.
Company trading Whitegates’ franchises enters voluntary liquidation
Comments (31)
Plenty of ‘ Phoenix Estate Agents ‘ probably too many to list if you really wanted to dig a little. What about the North East Agent who went bust a while back only for his wife to buy the company off the receivers and then promptly install her husband ( the one whose business went bust ) as chairman!
However if you want a real irony the business the former Whitegates franchisee acquired to expand his network, Taylors ( no connection to the CWD brand ) had also previously gone bust owing thousands to their creditors only to be bought back by the previous owner and then promptly started trading again from the same Leicester City Centre premises after ditching a couple of loss making satellite Branches on the way.
Why not call his new estate agents ‘Phoenix Estate Agents,’ in fact there could be a large network of ‘Phoenix Estate Agents’ raising from the ashes. Like many seem to nowadays. If they all called their new businesses ”Phoenix Estate Agents’
Whitegates was an amazing place to work when it was one large company. David Maltby, the former MD was possibly the nicest man in agency.
#sentimentalpost
I think this is a simple but familiar tale of an ambitious but naive, inexperienced young man who joined a franchised group with the best of intentions but became susceptible to the franchisor pushing him into an unsustainable debt burden in order to acquire neighbouring portfolios. Prima facie, the franchisor appears as culpable as Mr Ghadia in this debacle, however, there is fundamentally something wrong with company law where a Director can ‘phoenix’ their way out of their responsibilities.
I do not think it would even be as simple as this. A journalist with an enquiring mind may find there is much more to this than meets the eye.
flockfollwer102 – says the man from Ewemove with no vested interest?
Vested interest or not, this story is pertinent to the industry as a whole as well as individual franchises.
Flock
What is your opinion of the 50+Ewemove franchisees who have disappeared quietly many with substantial life changing debts
How would that be anyone’s fault but the franchisee? If you are a director of a limited company then you are responsible. I don’t believe any franchisor would be acting as a shadow director and making decisions for them. It sounds like you may have been one of the ‘lost flock’ but want to take no blame yourself for your own companies miss management?
Seems a bit of damage limitation PR in the comments ……
Is this a paid article by this franchise group or just lazy journalism?
Smooth appear to be on Rightmove and also have properties so there’s your first inaccuracy.
We all know what these ‘supportive’ franchise groups are like. Mainly they bully you until you crack, sounds like this guy has the secret recipe! Good look to you my man.
£230k owed to HMRC…
Should ‘anyone’ who owes that amount of debt be handling customers cash?
I think there’s some inaccuracies with this article, Smooth’s properties are showing on Rightmove.
I wonder if this is a case of franchisor terminating or is it franchisee terminating? What did TPFG do wrong?
Usually if the franchisee has been terminated they have to sell and can’t trade so something has happened which has allowed the franchisee to keep his business. How intriguing!
I don’t hear great things about Whitegates as a franchisor so you may well be right… think they have diff management to Martin and co?
I believe it’s all the same! Different MDs but it’s all the same really.
I have to agree with AlwaysAnAgent, there is more to this than meets the eye! We operate on the same street as Mr Gadhia’s Leicester office and we wish him luck in his new venture.
Flockfollower102 are you a client of Mr Gadhia’s or just a nosey agent trying to stir things?
The Whitegates franchise agreement is set up so that the franchisee can not give up the franchise and then trade with all of the properties under a different name as if nothing has changed. Therefore something has been worked out between franchisee and franchisor. One option if the franchisee wanted to continue trading independently would be to buy themselves out of the franchise. I would imagine this would include some kind of gagging clause. It would be interesting to know why TPFG has allowed this to happen. I would guess the shareholders would also be interested. Someone who understands company reports may be able to see if this has been done previously within that report.
Good for him! Trading as an independent finally. I do know him and he’s been treated terribly when he grew the brand over the years from cold. He’s not one to stand for ill treatment so I’m sure there’s more to this story on his account! Congratulations Mitul on your franchise freedom! Share with us how you managed to break free please!
Thank you!
A significant loss to Whitegates / PFG and there must be a lot more to this than meets the eye?
Thank you!
No comment from anyone on the deposits. Would be very interesting to find out what has happened to client accounts. Who is now managing the portfolio? Has it been transferred to TPFG or one of the other franchisees? I would imagine there would be a lot of readers interested in these hard and fast facts.
Both lettings and sales are being operated by Smooth. The deposits are and remain in the DPS Custodial scheme and the client account remains business as usual. It’s a simple trading name change in essence.
You’re the guy who wound the business up. left your creditors penniless and restarted under a different name?
£231,000 owed to HMRC. That’s not a simple trading name change. That’s a tax dodge.
£650k owed to the director. Why not state all the facts if you’re going to criticise?!
So you’re a terrible businessman then?
Are you saying that’s it’s okay to lose almost a MILLION pounds of yours and other people’s money, which is an enormous amount of money, and no one should ask questions?
Hang on, What directors lose is their own silly fault, unpaid tax is fraud against all of us.
If you cannot manage a business correctly why should everyone else pay? A couple of things, the intercompany loan isn’t your money. That is another ltd company. A separate entity to individuals. Secondly, you have ripped HMRC off and started up again.