I am, once more, the bearer of glad tidings for every one of Britain’s eleven million registered mortgage holders, which might well herald the beginning of the end for institutionalised mortgage fraud on these disunited isles.
Today, the trustees of my family’s property trust received written confirmation from the Land Registry that we have shown grounds for every mortgage held over the trust’s properties by Bank of Scotland at the start of our dispute in June 2010 to be removed from the Charges Register retrospectively, on the basis that we have produced witness statements which prove, on the balance of probabilities, that none the mortgage deeds were properly witnessed, in breach of section 1(3) of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989.
In addition and in any event, we have also demonstrated with verified accounting evidence that Bank of Scotland has claimed at least £2.15M from the trustees in completely fictitious mortgage arrears; and as a consequence, the trust’s debt to the bank [if one actually existed] was paid off no later than the 21st of October 2013, which was nine months before HHJ Behrens ruled in the High Court at Leeds that the debt was still due and outstanding, when he also declared that, whilst the trustees had proven that one of the mortgages was void for breaching section 1(3) of the 1989 Act, the bank was still entitled to a charge over the property concerned, which was then illegally created and registered without the consent or signatures of the trustees.
That void and illegal mortgage, along with all the others, is now set to be removed from the Charges Register on the same ground the first was canceled; and because the trustees were entitled to have every one of those mortgages discharged at least nine months before the now retired Behrens presided over the bank’s fraudulent claim against the trustees.
In more simplistic terms, the only argument the bank has relied upon since the first void mortgage was proven to be illegal in July 2014 has now been obliterated by irrefutable evidence and the Land Registry now has the statutory power to grant all our applications for the retrospective rectification of the register, without an order of her majesty’s courts.
Not only does the Land Registrar have authority to act as if Behrens judgment was never made [save for the the summary judgment he gave to the trustees on the section 1(3) point], she also does not require the consent of Bank of Scotland to grant the applications, under Schedule 4, sections 5 and 6 of the Land Registration Act 2002, which state:
Alteration otherwise than pursuant to a court order
5 The registrar may alter the register for the purpose of—
(a)correcting a mistake,
(b)bringing the register up to date,
(c)giving effect to any estate, right or interest excepted from the effect of registration, or
(d)removing a superfluous entry.
6(1)This paragraph applies to the power under paragraph 5, so far as relating to rectification.
(2)No alteration affecting the title of the proprietor of a registered estate in land may be made under paragraph 5 without the proprietor’s consent in relation to land in his possession unless—
(a)he has by fraud or lack of proper care caused or substantially contributed to the mistake, or
(b)it would for any other reason be unjust for the alteration not to be made.
The effect of these applications being granted, upon submission of a final statement of grounds, will be that every mortgagor who signed a mortgage deed without a witness being present at the moment of execution can make an AP1 application the Land Registry to cancel their illegal mortgage, relying upon Bank of Scotland plc v Waugh & Others [2014] and our successful cancellations of the void and illegal mortgages by the Land Registry.
Whilst the applications have not yet been granted and there is always a possibility the rigged system will find some way to affect the outcome, my instinct insists that the beginning of the end of our seemingly interminable battle for justice over fraudulent mortgages is finally upon us and that there is nobody left on the battlefield who is capable of preventing the success of our applications.
