Lees v Lloyds Bank Plc

A registered proprietor of a legal charge remains entitled to bring possession proceedings unless an effective transfer of the relevant legal or equitable interest is established. A borrower cannot use a fresh High Court claim to mount a collateral attack on concluded possession orders. Freestanding disclosure powers do not provide a substitute for disclosure within existing proceedings, and pre-action disclosure requires compliance with the statutory conditions. A data subject access request is directed to personal data, not generally to obtaining documents for use in litigation. The court retains a discretion over relief for non-compliance, taking account of repetitive or abusive requests, collateral purposes, the usefulness of the data and the existence of concluded related proceedings.

The claimant held three buy-to-let mortgages granted by Lloyds. Lloyds was the registered proprietor of the legal charges and had obtained possession orders in the County Court. The claimant alleged that the loans or charges had been securitised and that Lloyds therefore lacked standing. He sought disclosure, relief concerning data subject access requests, and information under the Law of Property Act 1925.

The claim also concerned requests made under the Data Protection Act 1998, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the GDPR. Lloyds applied for strike-out or summary judgment. The central issues were whether the claimant could reopen the standing issue, whether disclosure or information relief was available, and whether Lloyds had failed to comply with the data access requests.

The claim was dismissed as totally without merit.

1. The disclosure provisions relied upon did not justify the relief sought. CPR 31.12 and paragraphs 17 and 19 of Practice Direction 51U concerned disclosure within existing proceedings. CPR 31.14 and paragraph 21 of that Practice Direction were irrelevant. CPR 31.16 could potentially apply, but the claimant had neither identified the requirements of CPR 31.16(3) nor complied with them.

2. Sections 136 and 196 of the Law of Property Act 1925 provided no basis for the requested relief.

3. Following Paragon Finance plc v Pender, [2005] 1 WLR 3412, the registered proprietor of the charges was the party entitled to bring possession proceedings, regardless of whether the charges formed part of a securitised loan portfolio. It was therefore unnecessary to decide as a fact whether securitisation had occurred. In any event, the claimant had no real prospect of establishing that Lloyds had divested itself of any interest.

4. The High Court claim was an improper collateral attack on possession orders already made by the County Court, after the claimant had exhausted the available avenues of appeal.

5. The relevant data subject access requests were made while the Data Protection Act 1998 remained applicable. Lloyds had provided adequate responses. The Data Protection Act 2018 preserved the effect of the earlier provisions for requests received before 25 May 2018.

6. The court’s discretion under section 7(9) of the Data Protection Act 1998 was not general and untrammelled. Applying the guidance in Ittihadieh v 5–11 Cheyne Gardens RTM Co Ltd, [2018] QB 256 (CA), relief would in any event have been refused because the requests were numerous and repetitive, pursued documents rather than personal data, had a collateral litigation purpose, would provide no useful benefit, and concerned issues already finally determined.

7. The observations in Promontoria (Oak) Ltd v Emanuel, [2020] EWHC 563 (Ch), did not assist. They concerned the evidential consequences of producing only a redacted assignment where the claimant’s status as assignee was undisputed. The present case concerned whether any assignment had occurred.

Consequential matters, including any application for permission to appeal and costs, were to be addressed by written submissions.

The judgment records that the County Court had made possession orders against the claimant, struck out his defences, entered money judgments and refused permission to appeal. Subsequent applications and permission applications were dismissed as totally without merit. The present High Court claim was dismissed as an impermissible collateral attack on those orders.