LONDON, England — A UK property tribunal has dismissed competing claims over a London house in a case it described as “extraordinary,” involving allegations of forgery, fraud, and fabricated identities.
The court ruled that the true owner of the property at 79 Randall Avenue, London NW2, was the late Nigerian general Jeremiah Useni, not the parties before it.
The case, heard at the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) under Judge Ewan Paton, began in February 2023 after senior Nigerian lawyer Mike Ozekhome sought to register a transfer of the property into his name.
He argued that “Mr Tali Shani” had gifted him the house in 2021 as a token of gratitude for legal services.
That application was challenged by another claimant, “Ms Tali Shani,” who insisted she was the legitimate owner and denounced the transfer as fraudulent.
What followed was a series of hearings that the tribunal later said were filled with “mutual accusations of forgery, conspiracy, corruption, and impersonation.”
Central to the dispute was the contested identity of “Ms Tali Shani,” who never appeared before the court.
Her representatives produced documents claiming she had died in Nigeria, including medical records, a national identity slip, a death certificate, and an obituary.
The tribunal, however, found inconsistencies in the documents — from mismatched dates on the death certificate to errors in the obituary — and dismissed them as forgeries.
Expert witnesses from Nigeria’s National Identity Management Commission testified that the identity slip was fabricated, while Nigerian police traced a mobile bill supposedly in her name to a solicitor linked with her legal team.
Judge Paton concluded: “I do not accept that ‘she’ was ever a real living person. The case has been pursued by others in the name of a person who never existed.”
Ozekhome’s claim was also struck down. He admitted he had only met “Mr Tali Shani” in 2019 and had no knowledge of the property’s 1993 purchase.
He said the house was gifted to him in gratitude, but the tribunal found his account “contradictory, implausible, and fabricated.”
The court ultimately accepted video testimony given in 2024 by General Useni, who died in January 2025.
In it, he confirmed he had purchased the house in 1993 using a false name, “Philips Bincan,” consistent with documentary evidence and his established practice of employing aliases for property and bank accounts.
“The final outcome of this case, therefore, is that both parties have failed. Neither ‘Tali Shani’ was who they said they were.
The real owner, via a false name, was General Jeremiah Useni,” the judgment read.
The tribunal ordered the cancellation of Ozekhome’s application to be registered as proprietor, ruling that ownership of the house now rests with whoever secures probate of Useni’s estate.
