the buildings. This money was used to finance an expensive lifestyle including a helicopter and a plane. India buildings was sold to an Irish company called Green Property in 2009 who still owned it in January 2013 when the former owners, Kallakis and Williams were jailed for fraud. In August 2017 it was announced that British multinational financial services company, Legal & General had bought India Buildings. HMRC will lease ten floors of the building to house a new Regional Centre. Around 3,500 HMRC staff were expected to start moving into the building when renovation work was completed in 2019. The plans were delayed when 400 tonnes of asbestos were discovered during the works. A new contractor was bought in to carry out the redevelopment work in September 2019 with the new tenants hoping to move in during 2020. The package of work being carried out includes repairing and cleaning the façade, removing more than 50% of office ceilings, re-lining the cast iron drainage system, refurbishing ornate windows and replacing the existing 8 lifts and the addition of 5 new lifts. On December 6th 2020 HMRC announced that they will move in on May 21st 2021 starting from floors 3–6 with floors 1-2 opening in the summer. In March 2021, due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and the government advice on home working, the May 2021 opening of floors 3-6 was cancelled. A new move date is provisionally set for "summer 2021" which will likely see staff from Regian House move in first as is tradition. St Johns House in Bootle will continue to operate until 2022. Architecture Exterior The building occupies a whole block, and is surrounded by Water Street, Brunswick Street, Fenwick Street, and Drury Lane. It has nine storeys, a mezzanine, a basement and a sub-basement. The building is constructed on a steel frame and is clad in Portland stone. It is roofed in green Lombardic tiles. The main entrance is on Water Street, this front having 13 bays. The entrance itself consists of three tall arches that are flanked by four bronze lamps, made by the Bromsgrove Guild, their design being based on those at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. Over the entrance is an ornamental balcony. At the basement level are four decorative shop fronts, and to the right of these is an entrance to the James Street underground station. The Brunswick Street front is