[2025] EWHC 2485 (Ch)

I have now dealt with the first two and the last of the five applications listed before me. The third, Vaqar’s application dated 26 January 2025 for a stay of the second application pending the decision in the first, is no longer effective, in light of my determination of the first two applications. The only application left is the fourth, Vaqar’s application dated 11 March 2025 in the 1987 English Partnership Action. This seeks an order lifting the automatic stay of that action imposed by CPR PD 51A, paragraph 19(1).

There are a number of problems with this application. The first is that Vaqar has no standing to make it. The 1987 claim concerns rights which he says he enjoyed prior to 2010, when he became bankrupt. But his bankruptcy means that any such rights would have vested in his trustee in bankruptcy, and he no longer has them. The second problem is that the 1987 claim is no longer properly constituted, since two of the defendants (Vaqar’s parents Bilal and Taj) are dead, and Vaqar has made no proposal as to how it should be properly constituted for the future.

Thirdly, the 1987 claim cannot now deal with Iftikhar’s right to possess the flat, the provenance of the money that was used to buy it, any claim that it was bought for Vaqar’s benefit, or that it is held on trust for him. These are issues which have been determined in the Possession Proceedings, and Vaqar is estopped from raising them against Iftikhar in the future. To the extent that lifting the stay is intended to facilitate the litigation of those issues in the 1987 claim, it is accordingly pointless. Fourthly, there have been no active steps taken in these proceedings since 1988, except the attempt by Iftikhar to lift the stay in 2011 and 2012, which Vaqar successfully resisted. In the interim, important witnesses such as Bilal and Taj have died, and documents may well have been lost.

In summary, the claim is not properly constituted, Vaqar is not entitled to make this application (which in any event seems to be purely tactical), he has ignored the claim for nearly 40 years, there is no benefit in acceding to it, and therefore I decline to do so. Vaqar’s application of 26 January 2025 in the 1987 English Partnership Action is accordingly dismissed.