A previous Lewis Innovative Investment syndicate was formed to buy a retail unit in a South of England County Town. The property cost £1.75 million plus purchase costs and the rent coming in was £138,000 each year. The rent was secure as the tenant was a major clearing bank who is liable to pay the rent until 2017.

A syndicate of twenty people was formed and the members invested about £800,000. The total buying cost was £1.865 million so around £1.1 million was borrowed from the Bank of Scotland Specialist Property Finance Team.

One member transferred £52,860 into his new Pointon York SIPP and this entitled him to 6.44% of the property. This gave him a property interest worth £112,700 and a slice of the rent worth £8,887 each year. Of course the same member's fund had a £70,400 participation in the mortgage too! He's only 42 though and doesn't intend to retire for a long time.

Allowing for modest rent increase at each review date we calculated that he'll have paid off the mortgage after 9 years. That means his £52,860 will have grown to £112,400 over nine years without any growth in the value of the property. In fact the rent will have paid for his whole investment before the tenant's lease expires! With the mortgage cleared his proportion of the rent will flow into his SIPP account for him to invest elsewhere, or join another Property Syndicate!

All this compares very favourably with other investment classes, but please read the risk factors insert.