However, the Queen's Park project suffered serious mismanagement and fraud; the company secretary William Swindlehurst and two others were found guilty in 1877 of defrauding £9,312 (approximately £883 thousand today) from the project.[13][14] The company was forced to raise rents, and tenants were no longer permitted to buy their houses; by 1880 the company's finances had recovered sufficiently to allow further expansion.[15]