The Land Registry adjudicator had found a signature on a transfer of land to have been fabricated. The respondent now appealed against refusal of leave to appeal out of time, saying that new evidence had come to light.
Held: Leave was refused. ‘This court can only interfere with that discretion if the judge took into account factors that were legally irrelevant, failed to take into account factors that were legally relevant, or reached a decision that was plainly wrong in the sense of being outside the band within which reasonable people might disagree. Mr Cawsey, in the course of his oral submissions, has not submitted that the judge went outside that band in the sense that his judgment was perverse. Accordingly, it is necessary for him to identify either some legally relevant matter which the judge failed to take into account, or alternatively to show that the judge took into account some legally irrelevant matter.
In my judgment, Mr Cawsey has not demonstrated that the judge did either of those things. The furthest that he went was to say that the judge gave insufficient weight to the administration of justice. But weight is a matter for the person exercising the discretion; it is not a matter upon which an appellate court can interfere, unless the weight given to the particular matter is so wrong as to make the decision as a whole perverse.’ There was an unexplained additional delay in the filing of the appeal.
Judges:
Pill, Lloyd, Lewison LJJ
Citations:
[2012] EWCA Civ 1012
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Registered Land
Updated: 03 November 2022; Ref: scu.463073