Shaun Leroy Cambpell v Chief Land Registrar
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Hodge |
| Judgment Date | 20 January 2022 |
| Neutral Citation | [2022] EWHC 200 (Ch) |
| Docket Number | Case No: PT-2021-000540 PT-2021-000579 PT-2021-000583 PT-2021-000620 PT-2021-000642 |
| Year | 2022 |
| Court | Chancery Division |
[2022] EWHC 200 (Ch)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES
PROPERTY, TRUSTS AND PROBATE LIST (ChD)
The Rolls Building
7 Rolls Buildings
Fetter Lane
London
HIS HONOUR JUDGE Hodge QC
Sitting as a Judge of the High Court
Case No: PT-2021-000540
PT-2021-000572
PT-2021-000579
PT-2021-000583
PT-2021-000620
PT-2021-000642
None of the CLAIMANTS attended or were represented
Ms Katrina Yates (instructed by the Government Legal Department) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
APPROVED JUDGMENT
This Transcript is Crown Copyright. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part other than in accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority. All rights are reserved.
JUDGE Hodge QC:
This is my extemporary judgment in relation to the remote hearing of six applications in six related claims proceeding in the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales under case number PT-2021-00540 and five other case numbers. The claim forms were issued on various dates between 16 June and 16 July 2021. The defendant in each case is the Chief Land Registrar who is represented before me today by Ms Katrina Yates (of counsel). There are six different claimants. In order of date issue of the claim forms, they are: Mr Shaun Leroy Campbell, Mr Selwyn Charles Campbell, Ms Yolanda Blicharz-Szmid, Mr Andrew Ian Graham, Mr Gordon Southward and Mr Floyd Wilson.
Applications to strike out the claims and/or for summary judgment in the defendant's favour were issued between 19 July and 30 September 2021. In each case the defendant's application is supported by a witness statement made the same day as the application was issued by Mr Malcolm Keith Abraham, who is a solicitor and senior lawyer in the Government Legal Department responsible for managing the conduct of litigation on behalf of the defendant Chief Land Registrar.
There are witness statements in answer from each of the six claimants. In addition, three of them, Mr Floyd Wilson, Mr Gordon Southwood and Mr Selwyn Charles Campbell, have issued their own applications for summary judgment against the defendant and supported those applications with separate witness statements. It is not clear whether those applications are formally listed before me today but if I accede to the defendant's applications to strike out the claims or to grant summary judgment in favour of the defendant thereon, then the claimants' applications for summary judgment would clearly fall to be dismissed and I should make formal orders dismissing them pursuant to the court's duty to further the overriding objective by actively managing cases and specifically invoking its power under CPR 1.4(2)(i) to deal with as many aspects of the case as it can on the same occasion.
In two of the claims, the defendant's application notice seeks, in addition, to strike out or for summary judgment, an extension of time for acknowledging service and for permission to participate in the proceedings because of the failure to acknowledge service in due time. The two claims in which that arises are the claims by Mr Selwyn Charles Campbell and Ms Yolanda Blicharz-Szmid. Mr Abraham deals with those specific aspects of the case at paragraphs 20 to 24 of his witness statement in support of the application in relation to Mr Selwyn Charles Campbell and at paragraphs 23 to 28 of his witness statement in relation to the claim against Ms Blicharz-Szmid. I will deal with those discrete applications towards the end of this extemporary judgment.
These applications were assigned a hearing window as long ago as 21 October 2021 and notice of that hearing window was given on that day by letter. Despite that, none of the claimants appear before the court today. There is a letter signed by each of the six claimants to the court manager dated 18 January 2022. In that letter, the six claimants write in respect of the hearing of the Chief Land Registrar's six applications to strike out and/or summarily dismiss the claims. The letter continues:
“In the interests of the overriding objection [clearly that means ‘objective’], namely in seeking the matters before the court at the hearing are dealt with fairly, the court is advised that we shall rely upon representations by way of evidence already filed at the hearing. Moreover, the court is requested to give due attention to the claimants' skeleton argument and matters raised therein. Accordingly, we invite the court to proceed in determination of the Chief Land Registrar's applications in our absence pursuant to CPR 23.11(1)”.
I have had the benefit of a detailed 23 page skeleton argument from Ms Yates for the defendant which I have pre-read. I have undertaken the pre-reading directed by Ms Yates in her skeleton by reference to the hearing bundle which extends to a PDF document of some 461 pages. In addition, there is a bundle of authorities assembled by Ms Yates which I have also looked at and which extends to some 194 pages. I have also received a seven page skeleton argument signed by each of the claimants which I have also pre-read and to which I have had regard.
As Ms Yates explained in her oral opening, all six claims are connected and all raise the same point of law, namely whether legal charges granted by each of the claimants over their respective properties were void for non-compliance with the requirements of section 2 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 because the respective mortgage deeds were executed unilaterally by the mortgagor (and borrower) without the signature of the mortgagee (and lender).
That issue arises in the context of claims brought by the claimants as present or former mortgagors or borrowers seeking rectification of the register of the title of the respective properties specifically under paragraph 2(1)(a) of Schedule 4 to the Land Registration Act 2002 and/or an indemnity under schedule 8 paragraph 1(b) of the 2002 Act. The claims proceed by reference to an asserted need to correct an alleged mistake on the Register in terms of the recording on the Register of legal charges against the respective titles to each claimant's present or former property when, on their cases, those legal charges were void for non-compliance with section 2 of the 1989 Act.
The defendant Registrar invites the court to strike out or give summary judgment on all six claims on the basis that the section 2 point is bad in law and totally devoid of any merit since section 2 does not apply to mortgage deeds which, in all cases, were executed correctly as deeds, even though not executed by the respective mortgagee. In addition, in the case of five of the six claimants — that is, all but Mr Southward — they have previously sought unsuccessfully to pursue the section 2 point in this or other courts and also in the First-tier Tribunal. In addition, Mr Selwyn Campbell is the subject of a general civil restraint order dated 7 July 2021 which covers the section 2 point. It is said that, in those circumstances, by re-running those arguments, those five claimants are engaged in an abuse of the court's process on the basis that it is either manifestly unfair, or brings the administration of justice into disrepute, for those claims to be sought to be re-litigated. Ms Yates points out that all six claims have been drafted in either identical or very similar terms; and they appear to have been raised in connection with a company known as Mortgage Five Zero Limited, of which Mr Selwyn Campbell and Mr Shaun Campbell were, and in the case of one of them may still be, a director or directors.
Mortgage Five Zero Limited is bound by the general civil restraint order and is believed to have been engaged in corresponding on behalf of the claimants in these claims without the court's consent. That in itself is said to be a further abuse of process and a breach of the general civil restraint order.
By way of overview, each of the claimants, as borrowers and mortgagors, had executed a charge by deed by way of legal mortgage over their respective properties in order to secure money loans. All six claimants rely on this section 2 point in support of the contention that their respective charges is or were void, thereby entitling them to orders for alteration of the Register of Title to cancel the relevant charge on the alleged basis that it constitutes a mistake on the Register of Title and, further or alternatively, an indemnity for loss by reason of a mistake whose correction would involve rectification.
The claimants expressly place reliance on a decision of his Honour Judge Behrens, sitting as a Judge of the High Court, in the case of Bank of Scotland Plc v Waugh [2014] EWHC 2117 (Ch) and specifically the observations of Judge Behrens at paragraphs 82 to 85 of his judgment. There had also been a claim by a seventh individual, Mr Paul Campbell, but this was discontinued after the Registrar made an application to strike it out. Mr Paul Campbell was the subject of an application that I heard last Wednesday, 12 January 2022, on the application of Kensington Mortgages Limited, in claim number PT-2021-000517, to strike out a claim brought by him against his former mortgagee in which he too had sought to advance the section 2 point. For the reasons that I gave in an extemporary judgment that morning, I gave summary judgment against Mr Paul Campbell on that claim, holding that the section 2...
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Mortgage Five Zero Ltd v The Secretary of State for Business and Trade
...present purposes, the decision of HHJ Hodge QC (Sitting as a Judge of the High Court) in Shaun Campbell & Ors v. Chief Land Registrar [2022] EWHC 200 (Ch), in which claims made by several parties who appear to have been associated with Mortgage Five Zero, and who relied on its view of s.2,......