14th October, 2018
By Akin Kuponiyi
An Oshogbo-based legal practitioner in Osun, Southwest Nigeria, Mrs Abosede Fagbola, who alleged that her property situated at 3 Ayoola Adeyefa street (Plot 4 Block N) Oroki Estate, Oshogbo sold by Stanbic IBTC Plc was vitiated by fraud, has dragged the bank before a Federal High Court in Lagos.
Joined as co -defendant was one Olusegun Akanji alleged to be parading himself as the purchaser of the Plaintiff’s property.
In a statement of claim accompany by written statement of witness sworn to by Mrs Fagbola and filed before the court by a Lagos lawyer, Olatunde Adejuyigbe SAN, the plaintiff alleged that she was a customer of Stanbic IBTC bank Plc, and that in July 2013, the bank granted her a residential property loan in the sum of N9 million to purchase the property located at 3 Ayoola Adeyefa Street Oroki Housing State, Oshogbo.
She executed in favour of the bank a deed of legal mortgage dated 13th of August, 2014,while she made
lodgement of fund into her account with the bank from time to time as repayment of the loan and accrued interest.
However, she discovered that her account was not being kept properly by the bank as her account was full of discrepancies arising from improper entries, wrongful debts, unauthorized and arbitrary charges.
The Plaintiff also discovered that the bank was charging arbitrary and illegal interest rates on the loan facility
contrary to the appropriate lending rates approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria and terms and conditions of the loan facility.
The Plaintiff alleged further that the illegal charges that applied to her account has made it difficult and impossible to determine the proper status of her account with the bank, as she has various time expressed her misgiving to the bank about the illegal charges.
By a letter dated June 14,the bank informed her that her property situated at 3, Ayoola Adeyefa Oshogbo had been sold by private treaty in the sum of N7 millon. It was also stated in the same letter that her indebtedness to the bank was in the sum of N8,818,583,583.
She later received a letter from the law firm of OLUJIMI & AKEREDOLU captioned “NOTICE OF CHANGE OF
OWNERSHIP, where it was stated that the property had been acquired by one Mr Olusegun Akanji.
The plaintiff averred that the sale of her property by Stanbic IBTC to Olusegun Akanji was illegal and unlawful in that the bank was not entitled to sell the property as its power of sale as Mortgagee had not become exercisable at the time the property was sold and stated that the bank acted in bad faith when it sold the her property to Olusegun Akanji at a gross undervalue in the sum of N7 million as the bank was well aware that the current market value of the property was far above the paltry sum of N7 million.
The plaintiff averred that the sale of her property by the bank to the second defendant was done in fraudulent manner based on collusion between the two defendants.
She alleged in particulars of fraud and stated that the sale of the property was conducted by the bank in a non-transparent manner, contending that the sale of the property was vitiated by fraud and should be set aside by the court as she was not indebted to the bank in the sum of N15,818,583,as the said sum emanated from the wrongful debts and illegal interest rates posted to her account by the bank
Consequently the Plaintiff claimed against the defendants jointly and severally are as follows: An order setting aside the sale of the Plaintiff’s property; an order directing StabbicIBTC bank to reverse all the wrongful charges and illegal interest rates debited to the Plaintiful’s account in respect of the Plaintiff’s property loan contrary to the terms of the said loan and an order of perpetual injunction restraining Olusegun Akanji from parading himself as the owner of the Plaintiff’s property.
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