Northampton Town loan: Ex-owner's wife's house sold by council

Christina Cardoza, her husband David and father-in-law Anthony Cardoza leaving Birmingham High Court in 2019

A home which belonged to the wife of the former owner of Northampton Town FC has been sold with a council recovering £466,000 as part of the proceeds.

Christine Cardoza, wife of the club's ex-chairman David Cardoza, had her home seized as part of the probe into a missing £10m council loan to the club.

West Northamptonshire Council sold the home in East Sussex for £765,000 having used £300,000 to pay off the mortgage.

The council said it incurred legal costs in recovering the money.

West Northants Council has assumed responsibility for recovering the money after Northampton Borough Council, which made the original £10m loan, was replaced in a shake-up of local government.

The club borrowed £10.25m from Northampton Borough Council when her husband David Cardoza, along with his father Anthony, were in charge of The Cobblers.

The loan was intended to help rebuild the East Stand at Sixfields stadium, and redevelop nearby land, but the work stalled in 2014 after contractors went unpaid.

In 2018, the High Court heard that £2.7m of the loan had been passed to Anthony Cardoza via a company set up to oversee the development, which had received the bulk of the loan.

The following year he was ordered to repay the council £2.1m, but was declared bankrupt a few months later.

A portion of the loan money was also used to remodel David and Christina Cardoza's former home at Church Brampton near Northampton.

The court also found that David Cardoza had transferred the house to his wife's name, and it was then sold and a new house bought in Eastbourne on the south coast of England.

The East Stand at Northampton Town's ground remains unfinished, but it was hoped a new deal to develop land would see work begin again

Northampton Borough Council launched legal proceedings to seize Mrs Cardoza's property.

She was given until June 2021 to pay what she owed.

West Northants Council said Mrs Cardoza failed to make payment by the deadline and chose to leave the property rather than incur the further expense of possession proceedings.

Council leader Jonathan Nunn said: "We certainly won't be attempting to claim a big victory around this, as the appropriate governance should have been in place to ensure it never went missing in the first place, but I can assure people that much better governance and diligence is in place."