Akinyele Latunji & Anor v One Savings Bank Plc

This remote hearing is listed to consider making four interim third-party debt orders final.

The defendant, One Savings Bank Plc, is represented by Mr Adrian Carr of counsel. Mr Latunji appears as a litigant in person speaking on behalf of himself and the second claimant, as its director.

This hearing was listed for 30 minutes. Unfortunately, the first 10 to 15 minutes of the hearing was occupied establishing what hearing bundles Mr Latunji had. In the event, Mr Latunji was able to locate the three hearing bundles sent to him by Mr Carr's solicitors, and was content to continue with the hearing.

For the avoidance of doubt, the hearing bundles were sent to Mr Latunji on 4 February 2026 by email timed at 15:40. A letter was attached to the email. That included a hyperlink directing Mr Latunji to a WeTransfer download link. Unfortunately, Mr Latunji had not downloaded the bundles, but he has now done so for this hearing.

Mr Carr has taken Mr Latunji and the Court carefully through the relevant page numbers in that bundle, and Mr Latunji has told me he was able to follow those page numbers. He is familiar with the documents in the bundles.

In addition, I was directed to a witness statement that has been filed by Mr Latunji, dated 4 February 2026. That witness statement was filed in opposition to the remedy sought by the bank today. The witness statement refers to an application that Mr Latunji has made dated 10 November 2025. Unfortunately, that application notice was not attached to Mr Latunji's February 2026 witness statement. However, I have been able to find a copy of Mr Latunji's application notice of 10 November 2025 on the CE-File system. That application notice says as follows:

"I apply for the order dated 28 October 2025 in claim PT-2025-001047 to be set aside or stayed on the following grounds below ..."

Mr Latunji then, in box 10 of the application notice, provides a number of grounds in support of his application to set aside the order dated 28 October 2025. Those grounds number six in total:

"1.

I was not provided with independent legal advice before executing the mortgage facilities despite making a specific request for it to the conveyancing solicitor.

2.

My explicit request for independent advice vitiates any defence based on industry norms which might otherwise exempt the lender from being put on enquiry.

3.

The fact that the lender's solicitors acted for both borrower and lender creates a conflict of interest which was a contributory cause of the failure to ensure valid independent legal advice existed.

4.

The lender made only a cursory attempt to notify me of missed payments, and acted opportunistically in moving to enforcement.

5.

Enforcement continued after arrears were cleared, making the lender's conduct inequitable and disproportionate.

6.

The primary authority supporting this application is Royal Bank of Scotland plc v Etridge (No2) [2001] UKHL 44, which establishes that a lender relying on a conflicted solicitor's assurance of independent advice cannot assume informed consent.

Accordingly, I respectfully request that:

(a)

the order of 28 October 2025 be set aside or stayed,

(b)

enforcement in respect of 12 Foyle Road, London N17 ONL and 3 Seaford Road, London N15 5DU be stayed pending reconsideration of the claim, and

(c)

the defendant be directed to provide full disclosure of all documentation evidencing any advice or instruction concerning independent legal advice."

It is apparent from the terms of that application notice that Mr Latunji was disgruntled and concerned with the procedure leading up to him executing a mortgage in relation to properties, specifically 12 Foyle Road and 3 Seaford Road. That causes me, having discovered and read that application notice, to set out more background to this matter.

The defendant in the claim, One Savings Bank, is a mortgage lender. It seems uncontentious that the first claimant and the second claimant borrowed money from the bank. That was secured against two properties: 2 Foyle Road and 3 Seaford Road. The position taken by the bank, is that there were mortgage arrears, and claims for possession were issued against the properties in the County Court.

The County Court made orders for possession in relation to the properties against the first claimant on 22 August 2024 and against the second claimant on 3 September 2024. I have seen those orders in the hearing bundle, It is apparent that there have been various skirmishes in the County Court following the bank's attempt to enforce those possession orders. The borrowers have unsuccessfully applied to appeal the possession orders, that there have been applications to suspend warrants for possessions, and there have been totally without merit findings in the County Court.

What is of particular relevance to the third-party debt order applications before me today is proceedings in this court that were initiated by the claimants a Part 8 claim form issued on 8 October 2025. That claim form was followed very shortly by an application by Mr Latunji and CA Capital Partners Ltd, dated 15 October 2025, which sought an interim injunction against the bank pending final determination of the claim, to restrain the bank from:

"(a)

taking or continuing any enforcement action including marketing, sale or possession of 12 Foyle Road London N17 ONL, and 3 Seaford Road, London N15 5DU, and

(b)

maintaining or publishing adverse credit or insolvency entries or other credit reference agencies or Companies House."

That application came on for hearing before Richards J on 28 October 2025. It is clear that at that hearing the applicants (being the claimants, Mr Latunji and CA Capital Partners) were represented by Ms Horner of counsel, acting through the CLIPS scheme. At that hearing the judge, having considered the application and the representations made by the parties on the interim application, ordered that the application was dismissed and:

"The applicants do pay the respondent's costs of the application on the standard basis summarily assessed in the sum of £14,000 by 4.00 p.m. on 11 November 2025."

That is the order which Mr Latunji seeks to challenge under the application notice dated 10 November 2025. I note that application notice is dated one day before the date for payment provided for in the order of Richards J.

The application notice of 10 November 2025 has not been listed for hearing in its own right.

I pause to note that further submissions were provided to the court by Mr Latunji in the form of a supplemental witness statement of Mr Latunji dated 13 January 2026. I have located that witness statement on the court's CE-File, and it is made in support of:

"... my existing application dated 10 November 2025 (issued under CPR 3.1(7)) by which I seek to set aside or vary the costs order dated 28 October 2025 and to obtain a stay of enforcement."

The 13 January 2026 witness statement goes on to note the consequences of the interim third-party debt orders which in short have been to freeze Mr Latunji's business bank account, placing stress and difficulties on Mr Latunji. Mr Latunji, in essence, seeks some release or accommodation in the interim third-party debt orders that would enable his business to continue operating its accounts and to stop causing commercial prejudice. Mr Latunji further notes, for example, that Barclays Bank has confirmed that there are no funds available in the Barclays Bank account which has been impacted by the interim third-party debt order. He asks the court to preserve the position until the court has determined the pending application. He asks for a stay of the interim third-party debt award.

The supplementary witness statement dated 13 January 2026, when provided to the court, was referred, by a direction of Deputy Master Dovar, to be considered at this hearing.

I have also had regard to a document entitled "Applicant's short reply note", which again seeks to address the defendant's concerns around the interim third-party debt orders which are, he says, causing him and his company operational harm and potentially irreversible prejudice.

Paragraph 3.1(7) of the Civil Procedure Rules provides as follows:

"A power of the court under these Rules to make an order includes a power to vary or revoke the order."

That is plainly a wide power. However, the notes to the White Book at para.3.1.17.1 provide some guidance as to the exercise of the discretion that is embodied in that case management power. It notes in particular:

"The interests of justice and of litigants generally requires that a final order remain final unless there are proper grounds for an appeal or unless there are exceptional grounds for varying or revoking it without an appeal."

The remaining part of the text in the White Book makes it clear that it is only in exceptional circumstances that a substantive objection to the terms of an order can be addressed by way of a later order varying or revoking that order, and that ordinarily any complaint in relation to a court order should proceed by way of an appeal.

Mr Latunji has confirmed today that there has been no appeal brought against the order of Richards J or, in particular, the costs order that was made by Richards J.

The difficulty that the court has is that Mr Latunji's primary grievance clearly relates to the bank's conduct, both before he took his mortgage from the bank and its conduct afterwards. This includes conduct in relation to, for example, not providing documents to Mr Latunji that he wanted to have, including to better present his position in the course of the litigation in the County Court.

Mr Carr rightly submits that this court has to be cognisant of the fact that Mr Latunji and his company have had every opportunity in the County Court to challenge the steps that have been taken by the bank in relation to seeking, amongst other matters, a possession order against him. For whatever reason, it is clear that Mr Latunji has not been successful in his defence against the bank in the County Court.

This court today has to focus on the debt on which the interim third-party debt orders were made, and on which the applications for the third-party debt orders were advanced. They are, as all parties acknowledge, based on the discrete costs order of Richards J, which was a final costs order in relation to the application that was before him.

In relation to the application dated 15 October 2025 that was heard by Richards J, Mr Latunji and CA Capital Partners took a decision of their own to make an application for an interim injunction. The second half of that interim injunction application, which was for an order preventing the banks from "maintaining or publishing adverse credit or insolvency entries or other credit reference agencies or Companies House", was not pursued by Mr Latunji at the hearing on 28 October 2025. Plainly costs would have flowed in favour of the bank in relation to the withdrawal of that part of the application, regardless of the failure on the remaining parts of the application which were argued out before Richards J. Further, there would have always been some costs order flowing from the interim injunction application that the applicant decided to issue, if it was not successful.

Mr Latunji and his company, CA Capital Partners Ltd, were not successful, and their 15 October 2025 application was dismissed. In the normal way, the court has gone on to address the costs consequences of the application having failed, and in the ordinary way the court has required the applicant, who was not successful in the discrete application, to pay the successful respondent's costs in the application which Richard J has then gone on to summarily assess, again in the normal way.

I am told that at the hearing on 28 October 2025 at which the applicants, Mr Latunji and his company, were represented, there was no application for further time to pay the £14,000 costs that were ordered by Richards J. Further, there was no application to Richards J at the 28 October 2025 hearing to stay his order or any argument that the costs of the interim application should be reserved to the judge dealing with the Part 8 claim when that came to be finally determined. It is clear that Richards J dealt with the costs of the interim application in the normal way in this regard. In short, even if a party is ultimately successful following a trial of a Part 7 or Part 8 claim, that does not mean that where they have lost interim applications along the way, they should not still have to pay the costs of those interim applications. That is why ordinarily the cost liability for an interim applications is finally dealt with at the hearing of the application and within the four corners of the application, and the costs are not left for a different judge to address on a later occasion. The costs are very often awarded to the successful party.

Nothing that I have read and none of the submissions that I have heard today provide any basis for finding that the claimants have, a real prospect of setting aside or varying the costs order made on 28 October 2025, or for being concerned that they might have such a prospect.

Having considered the application of 10 November 2025 and the evidence in support of it, including the witness evidence, I am in a position to consider whether there is any real prospect in that part of the application that might seek to set aside the costs order that was made on 28 October 2025. In my judgment, there is nothing in that application that enables me to be confident or even concerned that there is any real prospect of that part of the order being set aside at some point in the future, such that at this moment in time the bank should not be able to continue to try and recover its costs order in the normal way, using standard enforcement procedures, in this instance by way of third-party debt orders.

There has been no appeal against the order. The order was made some time ago. The fundamental issues appear to be in relation - as I have already spelt out - to how the mortgages were originally entered into, and then the bank’s conduct leading up to the and during the possession claim. The interim application that was issued by Mr Latunji and CA Capital Partners on 15 October 2025 was its own discrete freestanding piece of satellite litigation. They were not successful in relation to that discrete piece of satellite litigation and they have a costs order against them following their decision to proceed as they did. There was no attempt to ask Richards J to stay his costs order, or to provide for another form of costs order on the day. It is difficult to discern what alternative form of costs order could have been made, and I have heard no submissions or seen any evidence that gets anywhere close to persuading me that there might be a real prospect of a court varying the costs order that was made. Clearly that costs order, if it was to be challenged, should really have been challenged by way of appeal.

The court today is left in a situation where it has a party that has the benefit of a judgment (costs) debt. That debt is the sum of £14,000, which should have been paid by 11 November 2025. To avoid enforcement steps being taken, it would have been open to Mr Latunji to pay that sum of money and to then, for example, appeal the 28 October 2025 order. If he had been successful on that appeal, no doubt a term of an appeal order would have required the bank to repay him the £14,000. Indeed, it is not uncommon that when a party seeks to appeal an order, a condition of that appeal is that the first instance costs are paid (at least into court) before the appeal is allowed to progress. A similar condition can be imposed under CPR Part 3 where applications, in particular weak applications, are made to otherwise challenge first instance decisions, including by way of an application to vary or set aside.

However, Mr Latunji and CA Capital Partners chose not to pay the cost debt and in the normal way the judgment (costs) creditor, namely the bank, was entitled to take steps to seek payment of that £14,000 by way of third-party debt orders. The bank made four third-party debt applications: one in relation to a Barclays Bank account held in Mr Latunji's name, one in relation to a NatWest bank account held in Mr Latunji's name, and another in relation to a NatWest bank account held by CA Capital Partners. They also made an application against another bank, ClearBank, held in the name of CA Capital Partners. Interim third-party debt orders were made by Master Clark. Three of those were made on 5 December 2025, and one was made on 11 December 2025. There are certificates of service in relation to each of those interim third-party debt orders.

The court now having had the opportunity to understand the basis upon which those third-party debt orders were sought, namely that they are based on a cost order that has not been appealed, has no hesitation today in making those third-party debt orders final.

Having listened carefully to Mr Latunji's concerns and complaints, it is no part of the court's function today to prevent him from continuing as he wishes to seek to attack or otherwise seek redress in relation to the complaints that he has against the bank. My focus today has been upon the underlying order of 28 October 2025 and to try and ascertain how, if at all, that order might be disturbed. In my judgment, having considered the documents in the bundles and considered further the documents on CE-File, there is no basis upon which I can find that there might be some real prospect of the costs order made on 28 October 2025 being disturbed.

That being so, there is no reason that the sum that was ordered to be paid as costs by the judge on 11 November 2025 should not now be paid. As already expanded upon, if in the fullness of time that costs order is set aside or varied, whether on appeal or by way of the 10 November 2025 application, I have no doubt that the bank has the necessary funds to promptly repay such sum with any interest, if it is now paid or recovered under final third party debt orders.

Part of Mr Latunji's submissions was to seek a variation or stay of the interim third-party debt orders so that he could continue to use the bank accounts. Mr Carr noted that once this judgment (costs) debt is paid, including if it is paid from one of these bank accounts following the final third-party debt order, then the bank accounts will be effectively unfrozen and Mr Latunji will be able to continue to use them in the normal way.

The whole purpose of a third-party debt order, including an interim third-party debt order, is to give a judgment creditor some degree of protection so that a judgment debtor is not able to remove their assets from, in this case, their bank accounts or pay other people from those bank accounts in preference and before paying the judgment creditor that has succeeded in obtaining the third-party debt order on an interim basis so as to frustrate the creditor. The whole point of an interim third-party debt order is to avoid precisely what it would seem Mr Latunji wanted to do, which was to continue to pay third parties before meeting the order of Richards J requiring him to pay the bank by 11 November 2025. I am making final third party debt orders, but even were I not doing so there is nothing before me to support an unusual carve out from or “relaxation” of the interim third party debt orders, or how the same might be policed.

I have to now determine a very discrete issue that arises, which concerns the costs of the third-party debt applications. The normal rule in third-party debt applications is that the fixed costs regime applies. Mr Carr tells me that ordinarily the fixed costs would be £98.50 per application. Mr Carr reminds me that the court has a discretion to depart from the fixed costs regime. He submits that I should exercise that discretion in this case. He notes, amongst other things, that this has not been the ordinary run-of-the-mill third-party debt application, which goes seamlessly or relatively easily between the interim stage and the final stage. Mr Carr submits that the fixed costs regime is there to deal with uncontested applications or applications where the contest is modest. There is merit in that starting submission. Mr Carr notes that the contest around these third-party debt applications has generated: significant correspondence; three bundles from the bank for this hearing, with a fourth bundle being provided by Mr Latunji; a number of witness statements that have had to be considered and addressed, and; it has been fully argued this afternoon not over half an hour but rather almost two hours of court time.

Mr Latunji accepts that he now understands what the position was in relation to the order made in October 2025 by Richards J, and why that is a very discrete matter and a solid platform for the £14,000 indebtedness on which the third-party debt orders are based. He does ask the court not to depart from the fixed costs regime. He makes the point that he has only ever wanted to obtain the documentation from the bank that is the bedrock or the foundation stone of their entitlement to take action under the mortgage to repossess the properties. Mr Latunji eloquently submits that if that information had been provided either in this court or in Edmonton County Court, then he would not have had to “dig his heels in”, in relation to the third-party debt order application. He notes, in a similar vein, that he has two pending applications or appeals, or perhaps even two pending applications and an appeal, against the possession orders; but certainly that he is challenging the orders that were made in the Edmonton County Court which are due for hearing in the near future. Again, all of this, he says, is because of the bank's intransigent position in refusing to provide the underlying documentation that he wants.

In my judgment, it is right in this case to depart from the normal fixed costs regime for the following brief reasons. Whilst Mr Latunji's ambition of obtaining documentation is understood, this was not the forum through which that relief would be obtained. The third-party debt order applications were not the forum for seeking that information. Third-party debt order applications are largely formulaic, particularly where they are based on debts that have accrued under judgments of a court, as in this case. Mr Latunji has elected to resist these applications for third-party debt orders and he has sought to resist them robustly. He has issued a number of applications within this phase of the claim. He has filed various witness statements and documents, the contents of which, while certainly advertising and addressing his core complaint and concern about the bank's entitlement to enforce under the mortgage, have not actually advanced a meritorious response to the discrete third-party debt order applications. Nonetheless, they have required the court and the creditor, namely the bank, to have to engage with the material that Mr Latunji has provided, as well as to engage with the correspondence passing between the parties. This has become a complex application for third-party debt orders, and a fully contested final hearing for final third-party debt orders, and, in my judgment, it is entirely right to disapply the fixed costs regime.

I have now to deal with the quantification of the costs that Mr Latunji and CA Capital Partners are going to have to pay in relation to the applications made by the bank for third-party debt orders. Working through the bank’s cost statement at a pace dictated by the court’s time already expended on this hearing, I have taken into account that this hearing has gone well beyond its allotted time and therefore the time costs for the hearing provided for on the statement of cost. I have listened carefully to the points made by Mr Latunji. He has challenged some of the time spent in the applications on the basis that it is both excessive for these applications but also on the basis that a lot of the underlying work formed work done in the County Court and the High Court Claims, leading up to the order made by Richards J. Mr Latunji says there is a real risk of some duplication. I take that into account.

There is no challenge to the hourly rates that are being applied, which I am told are within the guideline rates. In relation to attendance on the client, Mr Latunji questions why over seven hours of attendance has been required on the Claimant by its solicitors. I see the force in that. Mr Latunji accepted the number of hours at half an hour for the telephone attendance on the lay client. In relation to letters in and out with Mr Latunji from the bank's solicitors, he does not accept that there has been eight hours. He seems to think there has been more like one hour's worth of work on correspondence concerned discretely with these applications. Mr Latunji also thinks that attendance on others is a little excessive. He does not challenge counsel's brief fee. On work done on documents, the main challenge is to the sum of £1,000 for compiling the bundle, which he says is duplication with work done in the history of the litigation between him and the bank to date. He also submits that the bundles were slightly excessive given that, as he said, the main reason that he has been contesting this application is because the interim third-party debt orders froze his bank accounts. He says that if the bank had just taken the money out of the bank accounts straightaway, he would not have had a problem with third-party debt order applications. There is also a challenge to the time spent on preparing the application notices at £830.

Going through the matter, I am going to make a reduction to the time spent on the clients. I am not going to make a reduction to the time spent on the telephone to the clients. I am going to make a slight reduction on letters and emails out. As regards, attendance on others, the court and counsel, in my judgment 2.5 hours is entirely reasonable and proportionate. Counsel's brief fee is entirely reasonable and proportionate. The costs for preparing the four applications for a third-party debt order at £830 is entirely reasonable and proportionate, as are the other work phases sought, save that there is perhaps some overkill in the bundles, so I will make a slight reduction on item 3 on documents. Drafting the final item, namely the statement of costs, is put at £525. That is a little excessive for the time it should have taken to draft this statement of costs. Taking all of those factors into account, I am going to provide for a total of ----

I have reached a decision on the quantification of costs, and what I am going to order is £5,000 plus VAT.