Bank Notes

R - Registration

28/3/24

BINYON v SUZERAIN INVESTMENT HOLDINGS LTD [2024] EWHC 749 (Ch)

A debenture was void against administrators because it had not been duly registered at the Companies Registry. Considers cases on the conclusiveness of a certificate of registration. The certificate of registration of the debenture was held not to be conclusive because it did not refer to the date of creation of the debenture but to a later amendment agreement which did not create any charge but purported to extend the terms of the debenture.

15/5/20

REES v 82 PORTLAND PLACE INVESTMENTS LLP [2020] EWHC 1177 (Ch)

The claimant’s claim to rectify the register had been correctly dismissed. There had been a mistaken failure by the Land Registry to enter a unilateral notice against the freehold title to protect the claimant’s claim to a lease extension, but mere failure to register the notice did not make it “unjust for the alteration not to be made” against the proprietor in possession of the freehold within Land Registration Act 2002, Sch 4, para 3(2)(b). This is a higher test than the exceptional circumstances test under para 3(3) and the fact that the claimant might have to pay £1.8m more to acquire a new lease as a result of the mistake did not make it unjust to refuse rectification.

14/5/20

DHILLON v BARCLAYS BANK PLC [2020] EWCA Civ 619

The claimant was a tenant of a house with a right to buy. As a result of a third party’s fraud the property had been transferred into the claimant’s name, then to a company and mortgaged it to the bank. The transfers were void for fraud. On dissolution of the company, the court had vested the property in the claimant subject to the bank’s charge. An application to rectify the register to remove the charge failed. The circumstances were exceptional to justify a refusal to alter the register because the claimant had not been the freehold owner but a tenant with a right to buy who would have had to raise money on mortgage to exercise the right. Rectification would create a windfall for the claimant. It was unnecessary to consider whether an indemnity would have been available to the bank if the register had been rectified.

27/9/19

KENSINGTON MORTGAGE COMPANY LTD v MALLON [2019] EWHC 2512 (Ch)

Defendants transferred title to their home to a third party to hold as security until a loan made to them by the third party was repaid. The third party mortgaged the property to the claimant and defaulted. A possession order made by the trial judge in favour of the claimant was upheld on appeal. The court reviewed the principles on which rights may arise under a resulting or constructive trust or by proprietary estoppel [37]. The trial judge had been entitled to find that the owners had not sufficiently pleaded a claim to an interest under a trust. In any event, by s 26 Land Registration Act 2002 any overriding interest of the defendants as persons in actual occupation would not have affected the validity of the mortgage and no trust or proprietary estoppel would have arisen until the debt had been repaid. There was no mistake in the title register because the transfer to the third party had not been void or voidable.

Comment

12/3/19

DILLON v BARCLAYS BANK PLC [2019] EWHC 475 (Ch)

A transfer of a property was void but the land registry entries would not be altered or rectified to remove the bank’s charge because there were exceptional circumstances justifying not doing so.

20/12/18

ANTOINE v BARCLAYS BANK UK PLC [2018] EWCA Civ 2846

Although a fraudster had procured a court order for his registration as proprietor of registered land in reliance on forged documents, the court order had been valid until set aside. The fraudster’s registration as proprietor and registration of a legal charge which he granted before the court order was set aside, could not be regarded as a “mistake” justifying rectification of the register under schedule 4 of the Land Registration Act 2002, because both the order and the legal charge had been valid when the Registrar had made the entries.

1/4/15

SWIFT 1ST LTD v CHIEF LAND REGISTRAR [2015] EWCA Civ 330, [2015] Ch 602

Following removal by consent from the Land Register of a legal charge on which the mortgagor’s signature had been forged, the lender sought an indemnity under sch 8 Land Registration Act 2002. The registrar argued that no indemnity was payable because the proprietor of the land had been in occupation throughout, so the mortgage had always been subject to her overriding interest, the register had merely been altered to bring it up to date to reflect those rights and the mortgagee could not be regarded as having suffered loss. That argument was rejected. A registered charge, even if forged, conferred substantive rights (Malory Enterprises Ltd v Cheshire Homes (UK) Ltd not followed) and by para 1(2)(b) of Sch 8 LRA the holder of such a charge was to be treated as having suffered loss by its removal from the register.

23/1/14

BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC v JOSEPH [2014] EWCA Civ 28

A unilateral notice under the Land Registration Act was effective to preserve the Bank’s priority even if the basis on which the Bank claimed an interest in the property was not accurately recorded.

20/12/13

NUGENT v NUGENT [2013] EWHC 4095 (Ch), [2015] Ch 121

The court gave guidance on the approach to be taken on an application to cancel a unilateral notice to enable the applicant to charge a property to raise funds to defend a claim by the applicant’s grandson to an interest in the property by proprietary estoppel.

4/3/13

GARWOOD v BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC [2013] EWHC 415 (Ch)

The bank was entitled to be re-registered as proprietor of a charge which it had cancelled by mistake not realising that its charge in fact secured another loan in addition to the loan which had been repaid. The cancellation of the charge was a voluntary disposition which would be set aside for mistake.

28/1/13

FITZWILLIAM v RICHALL HOLDINGS SERVICES LTD [2013] EWHC 86 (Ch)

The former registered owner of property was entitled to have the land register altered to restore him as the proprietor. He remained the beneficial owner despite a transfer into the name of a purchaser. The transfer was void because it had been executed by a purported agent under a forged power of attorney. Therefore it was not a disposition within the meaning of the LRA 2002 and registration of the purchaser did not affect the true owner’s beneficial interest.