Adam Douglas received £50,000 for his property firm in 2020
Aerial view of Wavertree, the location of the firm’s registered address until May 2023(Image: Google)
A Liverpool-based director of a property business has been disqualified after transferring his firm’s £50,000 loan to his own bank account. Adam Thomas Douglas was the director of Azuli Property Developments Ltd.
The firm’s registered office address from its founding in September 2019 until May 2023 was 6 Wavertree Nook Road in Wavertree. According to The Insolvency Service, this was also the last known address of Mr Douglas, who is 37 years-old. The service releases details of cases concerning direction disqualification on its website.
The case details for Mr Douglas, submitted on September 22 2025, stated that he obtained £50,000 from a Government-backed bounce back loan (BBL).
The scheme was introduced to support businesses during the covid pandemic. The terms of the BBL scheme meant that a company could obtain a loan of up to 25% of its turnover for the 2019 calendar year if it had been trading before January 1 2019.
If it had started trading after this date, as was the case with Azuli, it had to provide an estimated annual turnover, up to a maximum value of £50,000.
In either case, an applicant company was required to declare that it was carrying on its business as at 1 March 2020 and had suffered an adverse impact caused by the covid pandemic.
The funds also had to go towards the applicant company and not be used for personal use.
On or around 25 June 2020, Mr Douglas applied to Azuli’s bank for a BBL in the sum of £50,000. The application was approved and Azuli received the £50,000 loan monies on July 13 2020.
Azuli was not trading before January 1 2019, so an estimate of the company’s annual turnover was required on the BBL application form.
Mr Douglas stated that Azuli’s estimated turnover was £750,000.
Azuli’s bank account was opened on or before June 25 2020. According to its bank statements, the first transaction on the account was the receipt of the BBL monies of £50,000 on July 13 2020.
Between September 16 2020 and December 28 2020, the BBL monies were fully withdrawn through one cash withdrawal of £5,500, four payments of £10,000 and one payment of £4,500 (a total of £50,000).
All of these were sent to an account held by Mr Douglas. No other transactions took place on Azuli’s account in this period or in the period from December 28 2020 until liquidation, apart from for two bank charges of £2.50 and £5.50 and a failed first repayment towards the BBL.
Mr Douglas stated that the payments to himself using the BBL money represented repayments of sums expended by him on Azuli’s behalf and/or that they were paid onwards to third parties in expectation of producing benefit to Azuli.
Mr Douglas has failed to deliver up and/or to procure the delivery up to the Liquidator of any accounting records of Azuli sufficient to explain any transactions passing through the company’s bank account.
There is accordingly no evidence sufficient to demonstrate that the BBL was used solely to serve the economic benefit of Azuli, as required by the BBL scheme’s rules.
Mr Douglas placed Azuli into creditors voluntary liquidation on 22 May 2023, owing at least £50,000 in respect of the BBL.
Following the case, Mr Douglas has been disqualified as a director for exactly 11 years. The ban came into effect on October 10 2025.