Fairbridge Capital Ltd v Chandu Patel & Anor

By an Application Notice (Form N244) dated 24th February 2026 and sealed on 25th February 2026 the two Defendants/Applicants Chandu and Kamini Patel (‘Mr and Mrs Patel’) seek to stay the execution of a warrant for the possession of their residential property at 42 St. Paul’s Close, Hounslow, TW3 3DE.

The warrant was issued on 23rd February 2026 by District Judge Worthington sitting at Brentford County Court, following an application for possession by the Claimant/Respondent (Fairbridge Capital Ltd – ‘Fairbridge’). Fairbridge’s application resulted from the persistent failure of Mr and Mrs Patel to repay a loan that was secured on that property. Eviction was scheduled to take place on 25th February 2026.

DJ Worthington also transferred the enforcement proceedings to the High Court under s.42 of the County Courts Act 1984, and directed that neither Mr nor Mrs Patel may make any further application in the proceedings without obtaining the prior permission of a High Court Judge.

Mr and Mrs Patel’s application for a stay came before Hill J on 25th February 2026 (ie the scheduled date of eviction) as an application without notice to Fairbridge. Hill J directed that (i) Fairbridge be given notice of the application, (ii) the full hearing be heard on 27th February 2026 and (iii) the execution of the warrant be suspended until that full hearing or until further Order.

It is that full hearing that came before the Court on 27th February 2026, and to which this judgment relates. In addition to the aforementioned stay, Mr and Mrs Patel seek permission to make an application in the County Court for DJ Worthington’s Order to be amended under CPR r.40.12 (‘the slip rule’), to correct what are said to be errors in the terms of his Order. Those errors are said to relate to the 4th Recital to the Order (the date set for eviction) and to paragraph 3 of the Order itself (the restrictions imposed on Mr and Mrs Patel in respect of making further applications to the Court).

In advance of that hearing Counsel for Fairbridge (Mr James Hamerton-Stove) submitted a skeleton argument which summarised the factual background to the loan and its non-payment by Mr and Mrs Patel. That factual summary is not disputed by Mr and Mrs Patel, and it is therefore helpful to repeat it here.

Fairbridge is a lender of short-term or ‘bridging’ loans. On 18th August 2022 Fairbridge lent £525,000 to a company which was under the control of Mr & Mrs Patel, Republic Cosmetics UK Ltd. The loan was secured against their residential property at 42 St Paul’s Close, Hounslow, TW3 3DE (“the Property”), registered at HM Land Registry under title number MX24976.

The term of the loan was 6 months, so the anticipated repayment date was 18th February 2023. However, Mr and Mrs Patel were each made bankrupt by orders of the court dated 4th October 2022. The bankruptcies constituted a breach of the loan terms. On 7th November 2022, Fairbridge made formal demands for repayment of the sum due.

Nothing was repaid by either Mr or Mrs Patel, so on 14th February 2023 Fairbridge issued possession proceedings (‘the substantive proceedings’). Mr and Mrs Patel made attempts to annul the bankruptcy orders, and they intimated that the loan monies due to Fairbridge would be repaid. Consequently, on 13th March 2023 the first possession hearing was adjourned. But at the next hearing, on 5th June 2023, Deputy District Judge Compton made an Order for Possession of the Property.

There has then followed a long history arising from Mr and Mrs Patel’s attempts to delay enforcement of DDJ Compton’s Possession Order, as well as delays caused by a very long waiting list for bailiffs’ appointments. As a result, Fairbridge have been prevented from realising the value of the Property for nearly 43 months, on a loan which had an expected term of 6 months.

The history of those delays can be summarised as follows:

As of September 2025 the redemption figure for the loan was £1,025,573.50, and it has increased further since then. The Property is believed to be worth around £700,000, with Fairbridge as the first charge-holder. Therefore there is substantial negative equity in the Property, and Mr & Mrs Patel’s bankruptcies suggest that there is little prospect of Fairbridge recovering the whole of the sum owed.

Mr and Mrs Patel made their application to stay the execution of the warrant for possession dated 23rd February 2026 on the basis of the evidence contained in three witness statements that were submitted on their behalf. Those witness statements were provided by: Mr (Chandu) Patel himself; his daughter (Bijal Patel) and her husband (Nishant Patel). Bijal and Nishant Patel were married on 24th August 2024.

Nishant Patel’s written evidence was that he had become aware of the repossession proceedings against his parents-in-law in June 2025. He has since decided to gift them the money in order to pay off the loan from Fairbridge up the value of £750,000, which he said he could pay by May 2026. He exhibited to his witness statement account statements relating to funds held in his name in the UAE and Canada to the value of 1,374,160.15 UAE Dirhams (approx. £275,000), and Can$820,986 (approx. £453,500) - a total of approx. £728,583.

Mr (Chandu) Patel’s witness statement gave a short history of the proceedings in the County Court. At his paragraphs 6 and 7 he explained the relief that he and his wife sought from the High Court (as summarised at paragraph 5 above). He also set out a proposed payment plan for the money being provided by Nishant Patel, namely:

Through their Counsel (Ms Jala Patang) Mr and Mrs Patel submit that their proposals will likely realise for Fairbridge more money than would be achieved through a distressed sale of the Property, and will also avoid two elderly people in poor health being evicted from their family home.

That proposal is not acceptable to Fairbridge, who wish to enforce DDJ Compton’s Order for possession so that they may sell the Property and recover what they can of the outstanding loan plus accrued interest and charges. Therefore, they ask that the temporary stay granted by Hill J’s Order of 25th February 2026 be set aside, that they have permission to issue a writ of possession in the High Court, and that the normal requirement for 14 days’ notice of intended eviction (pursuant to CPR r.83.8A(2)) be dispensed with, pursuant to the Court’s discretion at CPR r.83.8A(5)(a).

Having considered the evidence submitted by all parties, and the submissions made by Counsel for Fairbridge and for Mr and Mrs Patel, I am satisfied that the proposal made by Nishant Patel to gift up to £750,000 to Mr and Mrs Patel is intended to delay further the execution of the warrant for eviction.

In reaching that conclusion I note that Nishant Patel says that he has been aware of the possession proceedings since June 2025, which was around the time of the third scheduled eviction date (see paragraphs 11(vii) and (viii) above). Since June 2025 Mrs Patel has wrongly, but successfully, applied for two further periods of Breathing Space relief, yet until February 2026 has made no proposals to Fairbridge for the repayment of the loan or any part of it, whether through funds supplied by Nishant Patel or otherwise.

I also note that despite apparently having liquid assets in Canada and the UAE to the value of over £720,000, Nishant Patel says that he requires until May 2026 to realise those assets and make them available to Fairbridge. Mr Chandu Patel has suggested a proposed payment plan which consists of staged payments by Nishant Patel, the money for which appears to derive from the same sources/accounts. I have been provided with no explanation for why the further delay suggested by the payment plan is necessary, nor any explanation as to why that offer was not made until after DJ Worthington’s Order, rather than in 2025 when Nishant Patel first became aware of these proceedings.

Therefore, I am satisfied that Nishant Patel’s offer to “gift” his parents-in-law that very substantial sum of money in the staged process that has been suggested is intended to buy Mr & Mrs Patel more time in the Property, and to further delay Fairbridge from recovering that to which they are entitled.

I am fortified in that view by the ancillary applications being made by Mr and Mrs Patel, namely for permission to apply for DJ Worthington’s Order to be amended under the slip rule or, failing that, to appeal the terms of his Order to a Circuit Judge. Those applications would inevitably also involve considerable further delay, and on the strength of the material before me I am satisfied that they are without legal or factual merit.

On that basis, Mr & Mrs Patel’s application for the relief that they have particularised at paragraph 10 of their Form N244, and at paragraphs 6 and 7 of Mr Patel’s witness statement, is refused.

It follows that the stay/suspension of execution that was ordered by Hill J on 25 February 2026 is lifted with immediate effect, and that Fairbridge is at liberty to enforce the possession order made by Deputy District Judge Compton on 5 June 2023. In the circumstances that Mr and Mrs Patel have been aware of their intended eviction since DJ Worthington’s Order on 23rd February 2026, pursuant to CPR r.83.8A(5)(a) there is no requirement to give the usual 14 days’ notice of the proposed eviction date.

Given that the available equity in the Property is considerably less that the money outstanding under the loan, and that Mr and Mrs Patel remain undischarged bankrupts, Fairbridge have requested that my Order be silent as to costs.

Finally, it has been brought to my attention that the first recital of Hill J’s Order contained some minor errors as to the dates upon which certain events took place. Therefore, pursuant to CPR r.40.12 (‘the slip rule’) that recital is amended so as to refer to the Applicants’ application being dated 24 February 2026 (not 24 January 2026), and it being issued and sealed on 25 February 2026 (not 25 January 2026).