BERMUDA Housing Corporation last year made a loan amounting to more than a quarter of a million dollars in the name of an employee - but the employee denies any knowledge of it.

A BHC loan statement in the name of Leila Outerbridge, who is the secretary of the Corporation's general manager Raymonde Dill, shows that the Corporation allowed items totalling more than $250,000 to be added to a loan which opened the year with a balance of just over $23,000.

Items paid for included a credit association bill, a telephone company bill and a land tax bill.

When questioned about the contents of the document yesterday, Ms Outerbridge categorically denied having held a mortgage or a loan with the BHC before November of last year.

But she said that she had taken out a mortgage for around $252,000 late last year.

"I have a mortgage with the Bermuda Housing Corporation, not a loan," said Ms Outerbridge yesterday.

"I took out the mortgage for $252,000, I think, in December or November last year."

This reporter asked Ms Outerbridge twice: "Did you have a loan or a mortgage with the Bermuda Housing Corporation before November of last year?"

Ms Outerbridge replied: "No."

The document showed that the Corporation added seven amounts to the loan, which opened 2001 with a balance of just over $23,000 owed.

Seven items were added to the loan between September 28 and November 27 last year.

The largest of these amounts was $219,880.81, added on September 28.

On the same day, according to the document, two other payments were made from the loan - $7,777.86 to meet a credit association bill and $641.11 for land tax.

On October 10, a cash payment of $5,600 was made by the BHC and added to the amount to be paid back.

An item listed as "cash receipts" in the amount of $252,000 paid off the bulk of the loan on November 23.

In the week after that two more items totalling $9,588.23 were paid out by the BHC on the loan.

It is understood that one of these payments, for $4,888.23, was to meet a Bermuda Telephone Company bill.

The statement also shows five repayments of $700 each to the BHC between April and September.

David Lines, a long-standing former chairman of the BHC, said it had not been unusual for employees to be granted mortgages by the Corporation in his time there, as they had the same rights as anyone else to apply for one.

"However, if this was a loan and it was unsecured, it would be highly unusual," said Mr. Lines. "If it was a loan, there would have to be an extraordinary reason to do it.

"You would need to have deeds or something of that sort, so that in effect you would have control over it."

Mr. Lines said it had been around a decade since he had been chairman.

Mortgages for up to 85 percent of the value of a property had not been unusual for BHC employees or other applicants, he said, provided the BHC board had been satisfied the family income was sufficient to pay it back.

"Employees would have to go through the same vetting process as anyone else and they would have to stand in line," added Mr. Lines. "They would not be able to jump ahead of other applicants."

An accountant who cast his eye over the document for this newspaper said the loan appeared unusual.

"It wouldn't be normal for a company in the private sector to give a loan of this size to an employee, or even to the president," said the accountant.

He added that one possible explanation for the largest sum lumped on to the loan, that of almost $220,000 on September 28, was that it could have been a bridging loan, since the sum of $252,000 was repaid two months later.

"Sometimes when someone has to buy a property before they can sell their own property, they need a bridging loan to survive the gap inbetween," said the accountant.

Ms Outerbridge is in the process of making renovations to her home in Cut Road, St. George's.

She has been granted a building permit by the Planning Department to convert a lower basement area into a studio apartment, including a living area, kitchen and a bath closet. Planning permission for the project was given in 1998.

Mr. Dill did not answer a message left at his office yesterday afternoon.