Michael (of Bernicia) Waugh, UK bankster-buster

[notorial dissent]

I have heard of cases where there was a recision of the mortgage for fraud or improper behavior but the borrower either got to walk away from it or else get a new valid mortgage but NEVER one where they just got to keep the property.

[NYGman]

Exactly, another thing he misses. To him, any proven failure equals free money and thus a free home. To him, it is so sime that it blows his mind that the courts don't agree. There must be collusion going on or somebody's after him and just doesn't want him to succeed, whatever it is they're out to get them one way or the other. The fact that the system seems to side with the bank, just proves it.

[SoLongCeylon]

Anyone care to translate?...........

http://www.thebernician.net/path-to-indemnification/

Once again, I am the bearer of news that every one of Britain’s eleven million registered mortgagors needs to know.

After five years of insisting that it is not liable for all the losses incurred by my family, in our on-going battle against Bank of Scotland, the Land Registry has accepted that we are entitled to be indemnified by the Chief Land Registrar, for every penny that was lost because of the illegal registration of nine fire-sold properties, which were valued in excess of £3.5M in 2010.

Just five days after receiving the invitation to apply for indemnity, a landmark decision was made in the court of appeal, which sheds some light on why the LR would make such a ruling, given how desperate it has been to avoid liability in our case.

Prior the judgment, given on 15/05/2018, in an appeal with the neutral citation number [2018] EWCA Civ 1082, no indeminifation by the Chief Land Regsitrar was even possible for a mortgagor, without having void and illegal entries in the charges register cancelled pursuant to a court order, which is an onerous task to say the least.

Nevertheless, even after having the void mortgage over one property [Ashquorn House] cancelled, the LR still refused to accept that we were entitled to indeminification for all our losses. Now, however, it would appear that Patten LJ has presented every illegally dispossessed mortgagor the means to redress the balance, albeit by the back door.

In summary of the outcome of the complex judgment:

1. When a property is fraudulently conveyed, upon the illegal registration of new proprietors, the Chief Land Registrar is liable for all losses incurred by all affected parties, as of the date the register is altered, as per the Swift Ltd decision.

2. Upon the transfer of monies for the illegal sale of the property concerned, the conveyancing solicitor is liable for all the losses incurred by the rightful beneficiary of the legal and equitable title, on the ground of breach of trust.

This means that, in the event that the Chief Land Registrar pays out compensation to an illegally dispossessed mortgagor, the firm of solicitors responsible for the registration of fraudulent or forged documents and the illegal transfer of funds can be sued by the CLR or the mortgagor to recover the losses incurred.

The effect of this decision is to remove the onerous burden upon the dispossessed mortgagor to have any judgment in favour of the void mortgagee set aside in the rigged courts system; as well as having the Charges Register duly rectified in an AP1 application [which, to the very best of my knowledge, has only ever been achieved in our case, when the charge over Ashquorn House was cancelled, pursuant to HHJ Behrens’ declaration that we are not estopped from relying on the defects in the mortgage deed, on 21/07/2014.

In the words of Rimer LJ, as quoted by Patten LJ in this landmark judgment:

89. “Nothing, said Lear, will come of nothing, and so it was here. Completion in the present context must mean the completion of a genuine contract by way of an exchange of real money in payment of the balance of the purchase price for real documents that will give the purchaser the means of registering the transfer of title to the property that he has agreed to buy and to charge. An exchange of real money for worthless forgeries in purported performance of a purported contract that was a nullity is not completion at all. Had that happened in this case, the parting with the loan money would have been a breach of trust.”

So what is the legal definition of ‘a forgery’ in this instance?

Section 4(2) of the Forgery Acy 1913 states:

Forgery of any public document which is not made felony under this or any other statute for the time being in force, if committed with intent to defraud or deceive, shall be a misdemeanour and punishable with imprisonment with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding two years.

Since every entry in the Charges Register is considered to be a ‘public document’, the following entries are forgeries made with the intent to deceive:

1. Any mortgage deed that was not signed by the mortgagor in the presence of a witness, who illegally witnessed the signature in a different place, at a different time [all of the void mortgages in our case].

2. Any mortgage deed that was altered in any way after signature [all mortgages which have a date added by a solicitor after it is signed by the mortgagor].

3. Any transfer of title deed that is registered without the authority of the owner of the property [all transfer deeds registered under the purported authority of a void possession order].

4. Any deed that is registered by a solicitor and pertains to a fraudulent claim for monies that aren’t owed [all the eleven million registered mortgages, on the ground that none of the banks actually lend any ‘real money’ to mortgagors].

Whilst there is a chance that the court of appeal’s decision will be overturned in the supreme court, my instinct tells me that this is somewhat unlikely on this occasion, for one very compelling reason:

The judgment provides the LR with the means to claim back every penny they shell out to indemnify the losses of void mortgagors, from the solicitors who were previously protected from liability by section 61 of the Trustee Act 1925 [see extract from the judgment below], for breach of the trust against the owner of the property illegally registered, as the solicitor acts as trustee for the beneficiary of the legal title.

“If it appears to the court that a trustee, whether appointed by the court or otherwise, is or may be personally liable for any breach of trust, whether the transaction alleged to be a breach of trust occurred before or after the commencement of this Act, but has acted honestly and reasonably, and ought fairly to be excused for the breach of trust and for omitting to obtain the directions of the court in the matter in which he committed such breach, then the court may relieve him either wholly or partly from personal liability for the same. […]

102. Since the contract was a nullity, so was the amendment made to it on 12 December. OWC were not therefore entitled to rely upon it as giving them authority to release the £430,000 to their client and remained bound by the Code [CML Code] in respect of the entirety of the purchase price. Since there never was any genuine completion of the sale, they are liable in my view to account for the entirety of the monies paid to them by the claimant.”

Given the incendiary and complex nature of this judgment, I will be making a special podcast discussing the various courses of action every one of Britain’s eleven million void mortgagors can take to indemnify themsleves against both losses incurred and future losses, caused by the institutionalised mortgage fraud carried out in their names by unscrupulous solicitors, on the instructions of the banks.

[exiledscouser]

It’s so hard to tell what’s going on here.

He’s quoting a 1913 definition of forgery for some reason as if this forms part of the judgement. No court would do so as the alleged wrongs took place after 1981 by which time forgery was defined slightly differently, almost in Shakespearian terms;

The offence of forgery.

A person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice.

As usual the fog of this man’s flowery invective and his selective use of parts in isolation (as we saw with the amateur post-match analysis the Crawfraud Gang tried in the Godsmark decision) disguises both the outcome and its actual impact, so far as his own obsessive circumstances relate. The case citation he refers to isn’t yet posted publically so we’ve little choice than to await a more objective review!

I would say that if the parish bells do sound out today in joyous celebration, that there might just be some other reason other that the “incendiary” result in Waugh v Everyone Else.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

Love his attack on the rigged courts, whist lauding a "landmark" decision by the very same rigged courts

I think I see what he's done here.

The ruling he quotes appears to say that changes made to the Land Registry as the result of a fraudulent document must be indemnified by the Land Registry.

What he then does is to use the 1913 Forgery Act to define his "unwitnessed" loan as a forgery, thus rendering the Land Registry liable to reimburse him.

Only flaw in that argument is that case law and findings so far seems to indicate that the loan is "good" and doesn't require a witnessed signature from the mortgage company so therefore is not by any modern definition a fraudulent document.

But then again stranger things have happened at sea

[Siegfried Shrink]

Had that happened in this case, the parting with the loan money would have been a breach of trust.”

from a snippet of the judgement quoted.

"Had that happened" seems to me to be a precursor to another sentence starting "however, this is not the situation here", to my mind the use of the word "had" implies that the relevant situation was something different.

Had the judgement been the glorious victory implied, I would have expected the judgement to be quoted. However, the only actual quote, if it can be relied on, may be so selective as to be the only thing that could be interpreted as positive.

If the judgement is published we may find out what really happened. On past form Mr. Waugh is not entirely to be relied upon as a reporter.

[longdog]

Even if all of his interpretations of this case and the law in general were correct his argument hits the rocks when you get to...

Any deed that is registered by a solicitor and pertains to a fraudulent claim for monies that aren’t owed [all the eleven million registered mortgages, on the ground that none of the banks actually lend any ‘real money’ to mortgagors]...

The 'they never leant me real money' argument has been flogged to death in courts and tribunals with a 100% failure rate.

[Siegfried Shrink]

Well spotted, I missed that detail.

[TheNewSaint]

1. When a property is fraudulently conveyed

Your property was not fraudulently conveyed.

The End.

[mufc1959]

This is the case with the citation he quotes.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/1082.html

Here's a summary of what it was all about.

http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/cour ... ty-buyers/

In a nutshell, solicitors who failed to undertake proper identity checks on their clients who were selling a property were on the hook when it turned out the sellers didn't actually own it after all.

Needless to say, it has nothing to do with O'Bernicia's case, where the court had ruled that improperly-executed mortgage deeds didn't create a legal charge, but merely an equitable charge. As we know, the court ordered the Trustees to re-execute the legal charges, and if they wouldn't, then the court would (and did) do so on their behalf. This then enabled the bank to take possession and sell the properties - legitimately.

[aesmith]

Since every entry in the Charges Register is considered to be a ‘public document’, the following entries are forgeries made with the intent to deceive:

1. Any mortgage deed that was not signed by the mortgagor in the presence of a witness, who illegally witnessed the signature in a different place, at a different time [all of the void mortgages in our case].

So that would be forgery by the mortgagor, borrower, Michael o'Waugh. Or am I missing something.

[longdog]

This is the case with the citation he quotes.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/1082.html

Here's a summary of what it was all about.

http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/cour ... ty-buyers/

In a nutshell, solicitors who failed to undertake proper identity checks on their clients who were selling a property were on the hook when it turned out the sellers didn't actually own it after all.

Needless to say, it has nothing to do with O'Bernicia's case, where the court had ruled that improperly-executed mortgage deeds didn't create a legal charge, but merely an equitable charge. As we know, the court ordered the Trustees to re-execute the legal charges, and if they wouldn't, then the court would (and did) do so on their behalf. This then enabled the bank to take possession and sell the properties - legitimately.

So in summary... Those who fraudulently attempt to sell a property they don't have title to will not be allowed to succeed and lawyers who abet the fraud when they know or should have known it was a fraudulent sale can be held liable. None of this should come as any surprise to anybody and I'm pretty sure none of it gives anybody a free house.

[exiledscouser]

On past form Mr. Waugh is not entirely to be relied upon as a reporter.

You’ve certainly got that right!

This guy deludes himself time after time and along with him all that gullible host riding his coat tails such as Neelu. He repeatedly reads into judgements things that simply aren’t there, as if by sheer force of will alone he can twist the narrative to his own sorry situation.

His shrill cries of total victory soon fade but amazingly no one in his wake questions another failure; O’Bonkers always relies on the “corruption” of the system once again snatching away his victory on the very cusp of ‘incendiary success’ as his get-out clause.

That’s a message the flock readily buy into so like some volcano he goes dormant for a while until the next “victory” and the uncritical follow in blind adoration.

[mufc1959]

So in summary... Those who fraudulently attempt to sell a property they don't have title to will not be allowed to succeed and lawyers who abet the fraud when they know or should have known it was a fraudulent sale can be held liable. None of this should come as any surprise to anybody and I'm pretty sure none of it gives anybody a free house.

The identity checks the solicitors carried out were inadequate. In 999 out of 1,000 cases, this wouldn't be a problem, but in this case it was. And the thieves got away with the money, a substantial amount, about £1million. The duped purchasers will be recouped, but by the solicitors' professional indemnity insurers. So in this case, crime did pay.

[longdog]

Give me a good honest thief over a footler who thinks he's fighting for justice any time.

[Hercule Parrot]

....In summary of the outcome of the complex judgment:

1. When a property is fraudulently conveyed, upon the illegal registration of new proprietors, the Chief Land Registrar is liable for all losses incurred by all affected parties, as of the date the register is altered, as per the Swift Ltd decision.....

I am not a lawyer, but this first point seems unlikely to me. Why would the Land Registry be liable for losses caused by another person's fraudulent conveyance? Unless the LR had been grossly negligent in accepting an obviously false registration, it would defy fundamental principles to make them responsible for someone else's dishonesty.

As usual, Waugh does not publish the judgement, only his own opinion of what it means.

[notorial dissent]

I would say it is not only his interpretation(s) of the judgment but the law(s) well that is suspect to the point of being outright fantasy. That is and has been his MO for as long as he has been at this.

I keep wondering if he really is that dumb and illiterate or if it is all an act. FWIW I'm voting on the former.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

I am not a lawyer, but this first point seems unlikely to me. Why would the Land Registry be liable for losses caused by another person's fraudulent conveyance? Unless the LR had been grossly negligent in accepting an obviously false registration, it would defy fundamental principles to make them responsible for someone else's dishonesty.

Post Swift, it does appear that the Land Registry are legally responsible, but they will then try to recover the money, as mufc1959 says. See: https://hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk/2017 ... -payments/

HM Land Registry will try to recover indemnity payments from wrongdoers who have caused or contributed to the fraud.

The means by which such recovery can be made are contained in the 'recourse provisions' of paragraph 10 of Schedule 8, Land Registration Act 2002.

[Hercule Parrot]

Post Swift, it does appear that the Land Registry are legally responsible, but they will then try to recover the money, as mufc1959 says. See: https://hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk/2017 ... -payments/ ]HM Land Registry will try to recover indemnity payments from wrongdoers who have caused or contributed to the fraud.

Ah, thank you. So the LR is not liable by negligence or tort, but rather by a statutory guarantee intended to reinforce trust in the system. That makes more sense. Googling around the judgements and law blogs, there has been a surprising amount of fraud in this sector, so public confidence would be a reasonable concern.

I still think Mr Waugh is going to fail in his assertions of fraudulent process, however.

[Siegfried Shrink]

Having reviewed the original case posted on bailii, it does seem that despite all the wriggling, Waugh is solidly on the hook for 2 million quid or so, and I am surprised the BoS has not applied for a bankruptcy order. Any money he has left will soon be dissipated in legal costs.