The (messy) law of receivership

• The position pre-Menon: the facts.
• The decision in Menon.
• Reflection and practical implications.

The law of receivership can be fiendishly difficult to make sense of. That is not just an academic issue: the ‘messiness’ of receivership creates daily challenges for lawyers acting for and against receivers in the courts. Often, cases that ought to be routine and straightforward become bogged down in legal argument.

Thankfully, on 7 October 2019 Mr Justice Mann made things a lot easier for practitioners by resolving one of the biggest issues in the law of receivership: can a receiver who is appointed under a mortgage of property owned by an individual mortgagor claim possession of the property from that individual by suing in his or her own name as receiver? The case was Menon & Menon v Pask & Goode [2019] EWHC 2611 (Ch), [2019] All ER (D)