Court of Appeal may be asked to rule on significant repossession issue

The key legal question concerns whether a bank was entitled to sell the mortgage on a property to another party when it had not correctly registered itself as the owner of the mortgage.

This then raises the question of whether the Property Registration Authority was entitled to register the buyer as the owner of the mortgage, and whether that registration can be challenged.

Mr Justice Seamus Noonan of the High Court said he would like the question to be referred to the Court of Appeal, but he requires one of the parties in the relevant case to apply to him for that referral.

He is currently overseeing a case concerning a mortgage first granted to Rolf Kane by Bank of Scotland Ireland (BOSI) in 2006.

Mr Kane claims the mortgage was not re-registered to Bank of Scotland plc (BOS) after the bank’s 2010 merger, and therefore BOS was not entitled to sell the mortgage to Tanager Designated Activity Company, who applied for repossesion when he later fell into arrears.