GTBank Mortgage foreclosure judgment overturned by Court of Appeal Lagos

The Court of Appeal Lagos has voided GTBank’s 2014 foreclosure of a N30bn Ikoyi mansion over a flawed mortgage, citing forgery and document inconsistencies

GTBank mortgage foreclosure judgment delivered in 2014 by the Federal High Court in Lagos has been quashed by the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division.

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The unanimous judgment, handed down on 18 June 2025, declared the foreclosure on a N30 billion Ikoyi mansion owned by Alhaji Agboola Abiola unlawful and riddled with procedural flaws.

The appellate court found that Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GTBank) lacked valid legal grounds to repossess the 44-room property belonging to the son of the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola.

Justice Paul Bassi, who delivered the lead ruling, faulted the lower court for ignoring key allegations of forgery and document tampering raised by the appellants, RCN Network Limited and Alhaji Si-Nurani Abiola.

At the centre of the legal dispute was a tripartite mortgage agreement GTBank relied upon to justify its foreclosure claim.

However, serious discrepancies emerged during litigation. One of the appellants contended he had never signed the deed.

More damning was the assertion that the supposed execution page bearing his signature was fraudulently extracted from an entirely different document.

Justice Bassi underscored the document’s lack of integrity, pointing to inconsistencies in pagination.

The mortgage pages were numbered “2 of 9” to “9 of 9”, yet the execution page bore “11 of 17”, indicating it originated from an unrelated set of records.

“This inconsistency in pagination alone casts a serious cloud over the authenticity of the mortgage deed,” the judge declared.

The appellants also accused the bank of consolidating two unrelated loans without proper authorisation.

According to court submissions, a N508 million loan agreement was improperly merged with another N1 billion facility, even after shares pledged as collateral had been liquidated.

Despite conflicting police reports on forgery claims, the court maintained that they did not sufficiently address the material flaws in GTBank’s documentation.

Justice Bassi criticised the trial court’s heavy reliance on Clause 6 of the disputed deed while overlooking its questionable origin. “A court cannot base its judgment on a document whose integrity is in serious doubt,” he warned.

With these findings, the Court of Appeal declared that GTBank was not entitled to appoint a receiver or execute foreclosure actions against the Ikoyi estate. The previous judgment, issued on 20 June 2014, was nullified in its entirety.

Justices Polycarp Kwahar and Abdulaziz Anka supported the decision, affirming that the trial court’s ruling could not stand. Both parties were instructed to bear their own legal costs.

The decision marks a significant victory for the Abiola family and casts a shadow over the mortgage practices of one of Nigeria’s leading banks.

It also reinforces the judiciary’s role in scrutinising potentially fraudulent financial documentation used in high-value property disputes.

This judgment sends a clear message that legal shortcuts in the mortgage and banking sector will not be tolerated, especially when forged documents and procedural manipulations threaten the rights of individuals.