A developer paid workmen and suppliers with money that did not belong to the company.
It's left some hard-working Cornish tradespeople facing repaying more than £100,000 and facing potential bankruptcy after the dodgy payments from Stephens & Stephens. Plumbers, bricklayers, electricians, and other construction professionals have been issued with letters from lawyers at Isadore Goldman asking for their clients' - liquidators of Stephens & Stephens - money back. The specialist insolvency and restructuring lawyers are understood to have contacted 120 sole traders and small business owners asking that they repay the money they received for work they carried out on Stephens & Stephens developments, such as the Pentire One and others in Newquay since March 6, 2024.

Many are worried about being bankrupted and potentially having to sell their homes. The developer was recently prosecuted for putting lives at risk by not having certain classes of Asbestos removed during the preliminary demolition.
Stephens & Stephens Developers Ltd was taken to the High Court of Justice in London by Travis Perkins Trading Company over unpaid debts two years ago. The national construction materials company filed a petition to see Stephens & Stephens Developers Limited liquidated on Wednesday, August 23, 2023.
The winding-up order that folded Stephens & Stephens Developers Ltd was granted to Travis Perkins as a creditor on March 6, 2024, making the Cornwall developer insolvent.
However, it was after the date of March 6 2024, when the liquidation proceedings were started against Stephens & Stephens Developers Limited, that company director Paul Stephens is said to have paid subcontractors and suppliers from a bank account that was now under the control of the liquidators, Christopher Parkman and Lisa Alford.
A letter from lawyers Isadore Goldman, reads: "We have been retained by Christopher Parkman and Lisa Alford in their capacity as joint liquidators of the above company (Stephens & Stephens Developers Limited) and represent them in connection with the matter of payments that were made by the company out of its bank accounts following the presentation of a winding up petition which led to a winding order being made.
The letter, dated March 5, 2025, continues: "Section 127 of the Insolvency Act 1986 provides that any disposition of the company's property made after the commencement of the winding up, unless the court otherwise orders it, is void. This includes payment of monies.
"Section 129 (2) of the Insolvency Act 1986 provides that the winding up of a company by the court is deemed to commence at the time of the presentation of the petition for winding up. We are instructed that no order has been made by the court sanctioning the payments that the company has made to you and therefore the total amount shown in the attached schedule is repayable."

One tradesman who received the letter said he will have to repay £25,000 to the liquidator.

The angry tradesman said that it's not just people like him who could potentially be in trouble financially but anyone who received payment for goods and services from Stephens & Stephens Developers Limited after March 6, 2024.

Another tradesman who, like his colleagues, told us he has instructed solicitors to look into potentially suing Mr Stephens, told us he was paid £50,000 for work he and his staff did on the Pentire scheme. He said: "Paul Stephens has been paying us from the bank account belonging to the company that went into liquidation. About 120 of us have got a letter from the liquidators asking to pay the money back.

"People have been contacting him and he just said it was nothing to do with him. People are now on the brink of losing their own businesses and homes and he doesn't care."

The Cornish company is one of many businesses under the umbrella name Stephens & Stephens Group. All are under the directorship of Mr Stephens.

Stephens & Stephens Developers Limited is the same company which pleaded guilty at Truro Crown Court to two counts under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Mr Stephens also pleaded guilty to a similar charge when he appeared in court on Monday, March 18, last year, for exposing staff, contractors and members of the public to asbestos during the demolition of the former Cliffdene Hotel on Narrowcliff in Newquay in 2020. The former hotel has now been replaced by the Cliff Edge luxury 'turnkey' development. Phase two of the project is currently under construction next door.

At a sentencing hearing on Wednesday, April 24, last year, Mr Stephens was spared jail and a disqualification from being a company boss despite cutting corners and putting profits ahead of safety. Instead he was sentenced to a fine and costs of about £90,000 to be paid in four instalments over the next 12 months. At the time, Recorder John Trevaskis warned Mr Stephens that should he default on his payments he could face two years in jail.

It was during that sentencing hearing that it was revealed that as Stephens & Stephens Developers Limited had gone into liquidation a few weeks before, the proceedings against the company could not proceed and no fine or other sentence could therefore be imposed on the business.
A spokesperson for the company said: "Stephens and Stephens Group has been made aware of letters that have been sent to suppliers, contractors and sub-contractors of Stephen and Stephens Developers Limited, a company that was forced into liquidation on 6 March 2024.

"The Liquidator of Stephens and Stephens Developers Limited, Christopher Parkman of Purnells, has seemingly chosen to pursue recipients of payments from the company from August 2023 to March 2024 for work, services or products legitimately delivered by them.

"These contractors and sub-contractors are legally entitled to apply to the court, through a solicitor, for an order to satisfy the claim of the liquidator which means that these monies do not have to be repaid."

They added: "Throughout the relevant period of time, Stephens and Stephens Developers Limited took legal and professional advice to enable them to continue trading, to protect Cornish jobs and investment and to contest the litigation that was brought against them. All of the payments that were made to suppliers, contractors and sub-contractors were made legally and in good faith, and in the expectation of continuous trading. Unfortunately, the litigation ultimately had a negative outcome and Stephens and Stephens Developers Limited had to immediately cease trading.