A WOMAN who invested just over £3,000 to become a Lloyds name now faces losing her £300,000 home.

Mary McPherson is suing the insurance company to try to keep the property in Roedean Crescent, Brighton.

Mrs McPherson paid £3,149 into the company nine years ago as an investment for her family.

The mother of two had to put up her home and the freehold to her husband's office to make up the £300,000 guarantee.

Now Lloyds want Mrs McPherson to pay the full guarantee to cover huge losses incurred by the company in recent years.

Lloyds names can gain a share in profits made, but also risk losing cash to cover any losses.

But Mrs McPherson says she was assured by a syndicate that she joined that her investment would be low risk and the most she could lose would be £25,000.

And now Mrs McPherson has issued a writ in the High Court saying that she should not have to pay the money.

She claims that Lloyds had agreed in 1996 not to take any of her assets but have since demanded payments.

The company lost billions in the late Eighties and early Nineties after a spate of pay-outs due to natural and industrial disasters.

These included the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the devastation caused by Hurricane Hugo.

Mrs McPherson says she has been forced to take legal action for the sake of her two sons, eight and ten.

She said: :"I could lose the home. They are small boys who need the security of a home."

When Mrs McPherson joined Lloyds it was recommended that she joined a syndicate of other names being run by financiers Gooda and Walker.

Mrs McPherson's solicitor husband, James, who also risks losing his Prince Albert Street, Brighton, office, is representing his wife's claim against Lloyds.

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