Richard Miller appears for the successful Respondent in a significant High Court appeal concerning the application of section 36 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970
On 15 December 2025, Mr Justice Adam Johnson handed down judgment in Ashrafi & Ashrafi v Belmont Green Finance Ltd [2025] EWHC 3247 (Ch). Richard Miller appeared for the successful Respondent, instructed by Oksana Hudson of TLT LLP.
The Appellants were the occupiers and beneficial owners of a property. The legal owner of the property had represented to the Respondent bank that he was the owner and obtained a buy-to-let mortgage. After arrears accrued and the Respondent was notified of the Appellants’ occupation of the property in breach of the terms of the mortgage, a claim for possession was commenced. At first instance, His Honour Judge Holmes made an order for possession and held that the Appellants could not maintain an overriding interest against the Respondent and were not mortgagors within the meaning of section 36 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970.
All of the Appellants’ grounds of appeal, that the Appellants had an overriding interest, that the Respondent’s security merged in the money judgment and deprived it of the right to seek a possession order, that the Appellants were mortgagors within the meaning of section 36 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970, and that the Respondent had behaved unconscionably, were dismissed. The judgment will be of particular interest in its discussion of who derives title under the mortgagor for the purposes of sections 36 and 39 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970, which the judge approached from first principles given the surprising lack of authority in the fifty-five years in which the provisions have been law. This will have a significant impact on who is entitled to ask the court to exercise the power to adjourn the proceedings or suspend a possession order on the basis that they can remedy a breach within a reasonable period.
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