Land Registry: Directed to remove restriction
A tribunal has found that a law firm did not have its client’s consent to place a restriction on her property in lieu of unpaid fees.
Judge Robert Brown, sitting in the property chamber of the First-tier Tribunal, granted an application by Deborah Fleet to direct HM Land Registry to remove the restriction placed in 2018 by now-defunct central London firm Bloomsbury Law Solicitors.
He was critical of both the firm’s conduct of the case – saying that at various times it either “simply failed to engage with the proceedings in any meaningful way” or “adopted an approach which has appeared to be obstructive” – and of the evidence of senior partner Jamil Ahmud.
Given his experience, it was “with some dismay that I have to say that I found his evidence to be generally unreliable and that he was lacking in credibility”.
The judge added: “At times, his answers involved lengthy argument that had nothing to do with the questions. At other times, his oral evidence expanded significantly on his written evidence in ways which were simply not credible.”
Bloomsbury Law acted for Ms Fleet on litigation and conveyancing matters, and the judge held there was “an agreement of sorts” between them that any fees she owed would be paid out of the proceeds of sale of her flat.
As a result, the firm said, she agreed to grant the firm a second charge over the property and signed a form CH1 in July 2018.
Ms Fleet said she was only ever provided with the second page of the form to sign – which Bloomsbury disputed – but the judge accepted her evidence.
“It is quite remarkable that at no point in the tribunal proceedings has [Bloomsbury] produced the first page of the CH1,” the judge said.
In any event, Ms Fleet’s mortgagee refused to allow a second charge to be granted against the property.
Mr Ahmud’s case was that he discussed the matter with her and they agreed that a lesser security than a charge could be put in place by way of a restriction.
Bloomsbury submitted form RX1 to HM Land Registry, saying it was “made with the consent of the registered proprietor”.
Ms Fleet denied this, saying she did not become aware of the restriction until 2021 and applied to HM Land Registry to remove it. The case reached the tribunal after the law firm objected.
The firm failed to provide a copy of the consent, despite a court direction to do so, and Judge Brown rejected the firm’s case that Ms Fleet’s signature on the CH1 – agreeing to a restriction alongside the charge – signified her consent to “a free-standing restriction”.
It could “only be interpreted” as being a consent to a restriction in the context of a charge, he held.
“Once the charge fell away, I cannot accept that this left the applicant’s consent intact. It was all part and parcel of the same thing.”
The judge went on to reject the firm’s contention that Ms Fleet gave oral consent, which she denied. There was no supporting evidence for this and “astonishingly” no file notes.
“It is simply inconceivable that any competent solicitor would not have made even the briefest of notes about it. The reason that no note exists is not because this was confirmation of an earlier agreement, but because no such discussion took place in the terms now alleged by Mr Ahmud.”
Even if there had been oral agreement, Judge Brown added, the argument would have failed as a matter of law, because form RX1 required the conveyancer to certify that they “hold” the proprietor’s consent.
That choice of wording was “inconsistent with the suggestion that an oral consent is sufficient”.
In a postscript, Judge Brown said that, while he was in the process of writing the decision, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) intervened in and closed down Bloomsbury.
According to the SRA, there was reason to suspect dishonesty on the part of Mr Ahmud.
The judge said the partnership still existed and so this did not affect the case.
He added: “It will be a matter for the SRA to consider whether any of the findings in this decision or the wider circumstances of this case require any further investigation or action by them.
“Similarly, I note from the SRA’s publicly available records that although the Respondent firm was not intervened in and closed down until 18th February 2026, Mr Ahmud is listed as having been suspended from 1st November 2024.
“I do not know whether this has been backdated, but if not then it would call into question some of Mr Ahmud’s conduct in this case and evidence to the tribunal. Again, those are matters for the SRA.”
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