Ryefield Park promises luxury stays; its latest appearance in court was rather less restful. A lender is seeking possession of the property amid a £1.9 million mortgage shortfall and a disputed default interest rate of 35.88%.
Reporting by freelance journalist Daniel Cloake
Please donate to the Cheese Fund or buy me a coffee to support crowd-funded journalism.
Ryefield Park Swimming Pool
The former directors of the collapsed UK peer-to-peer finance platform Lendy Ltd, Tim Gordon, 47, and Liam Brooke, 44, were accused by its administrators (RSM Restructuring) of siphoning roughly £6.5 million of company funds via offshore entities registered in the Marshall Islands.
“Sham” Invoices
To justify moving the massive sums, the directors allegedly utilised false marketing service agreements and “sham” invoices. The administrators asserted that these payments provided no actual commercial purpose to Lendy and were ultimately engineered for the personal benefit of Gordon and Brooke.
Throughout the entire case, Gordon and his co-defendant explicitly denied any accusations of wrongdoing.
Extensive coverage of the claim can be read in “Lendy v Brooke & Others – The Marshall Island Mystery“.
The High Court hit Gordon and Brooke, and companies connected to them, with a worldwide freezing injunction over their assets in June 2020, while the case continued.
In October 2022 all the parties, including Gordon and a related company called RFP Holdings Ltd, reached a confidential settlement agreement with the administrators which required the payment of a headline amount of £3.4 million.
RFP Holdings Ltd is an English company of which Ms Sara Bryce-Gordon, 42, is the sole director and shareholder, having replaced her husband Tim in these roles on 4th July 2019.
An asset of RFP Holdings, and one which may explain the name, is Ryefield Park, which according to its website “offers luxurious self-catered accommodation”.
A ‘Luxury 3-bedroom cottage’ on the site goes for around £500 a night, or the ‘Luxury guest suite’ goes for £275 a night.
Documents filed at Companies House, seen by the mouseinthecourt, reveal a mortgage was secured against the entire site on 29th November 2023 from a company called MT Finance.
The loan, of £1.48m, featured an interest rate of some 1.05% per month.
A further charge from MT Finance, used to secure a loan of £1.6m with an interest rate of 1.2% per month, was registered on 29th May 2025. It is not known if this replaced the existing loan, or was additional to it.
Unfortunately, MT Finance had reason to pursue a possession order over the property at the County Court in Portsmouth leading to a 14-minute hearing observed by the mouseinthecourt.
Tim Gordon and Sara Bryce-Gordon outside court earlier today
My attendance at this hearing was not welcome, with Ms Hobbs, representing Mr Gordon, asking that the court address “the elephant in the room – the journalist sitting at the back”. Whilst acknowledging the requirement for open justice, broadly that courts sit in public, it was submitted that I be asked “not to attend this hearing”.
I remained in the hearing.
It was explained that some £1.7m had been raised by the defendants to assist in repayment of the mortgage, leaving a shortfall of some £200,000.
It was said the debt was now attracting an interest rate of some 35.88%, something which “hadn’t been anticipated” by either Mr Gordon or Ms Bryce-Gordon.
An outstanding hurdle in the refinancing was going to be be overcome by splitting the title to the property, separating out the residential part where Mr Gordon lived, with the business “Airbnb” part, we were told.
Whilst not representing Ms Bryce-Gordon, Ms Hobbs nevertheless addressed the court on her behalf saying she was “quite nervous today” and was “seeking time to put in a defence and speak to solicitors.” We were told the default rate of interest would be challenged on the basis that it was “extortionately high and would constitute a penalty.”
District Judge Kevin Pain, reciting the order the court was making, said that there was currently no defence before the court and he would allow both the company and Ms Bryce-Gordon until 28th October 2026 for them to file a defence.
The lender would then have three weeks to file a response.
A 20-minute hearing was scheduled for the first available date after 25th November 2026.
Case details:
30th September 2026
Courtroom 13 before District Judge Kevin Pain
Portsmouth Combined Court Centre
The Courts of Justice, Winston Churchill Avenue, Portsmouth, PO1 2EB
Case number: N00PO617
MT Finance Ltd v RFP Holdings Ltd & Sara Robyn Bryce-Gordon
