ROGUE car dealer Richard Loach will pay just £1 of a £400,000 confiscation order, and his wife gets to keep their house.
Loach ran a business buying and selling cars over the internet with his brother – but conned customers out of more than £1 million.
After going bankrupt in 2008, father-of-three Loach has no money available to give back his share in the fraud.
Judge Michael Pert QC ruled yesterday that Loach's benefit from his crime was £400,000.
But the amount he could pay was nothing and the judge ordered Loach to give a nominal amount of £1 in the next 28 days.
Loach successfully contested an attempt by prosecutors at the proceeds-of-crime hearing to claim money he had been paying towards the mortgage at the marital home in Roslyn Avenue, Gedling.
Nottingham Crown Court heard his wife, Dawn, had bought out her husband's interest in the house.
She was fed up with creditors knocking at the door and wanted to protect the family home.
Judge Pert said: "The defendant agreed. They wanted the house to be in her sole name in order to be able to assert lawfully that he had no interest in the house if there was to be a claim."
Richard and his brother, David Loach, ran the Left Hand Drive Car Company until an investigation by trading standards officers.
Investigators found many customers who paid for vehicles never received them or a full refund, while those who left vehicles with the brothers on a "sale or return" basis did not get full payment or any money at all.
In May 2013, Richard Loach, 47, and David Loach, 50, of Main Road, Cotgrave, were both jailed for two years and three months after pleading guilty to knowingly carrying on a fraudulent business with intent to defraud creditors.
David Loach also benefited to the tune of £400,000, and £23,220 was ordered to be confiscated from him after a ruling at court on August 23 last year.
The court previously heard how the pair ran a number of companies over a ten-year period selling left-hand-drive cars.
The company ceased trading in December 2008 after failing to keep up payments to creditors and to deliver vehicles. It was found the brothers each owed more than £1.3 million when the company was wound up, relating to more than 60 separate claims from customers.
