Plaintiff, a prospective purchaser of real property, failed to obtain leave of court to sue defendant, the receiver of the property in the underlying action, to which plaintiff was not a party, for defendant’s conduct in facilitating the sale of the property. Nonetheless, the rule requiring leave to sue a receiver is not statutory and does not affect the court’s jurisdiction (see Copeland v Salomon, 56 NY2d 222, 230 [1982]).
However, dismissal of the complaint was warranted for lack of legal capacity under CPLR 3211 (a) (3), since a legal action filed against a receiver without leave of court cannot be maintained (see Chang v Zapson, 67 AD3d 435 [2009]) unless the court permits the action to be filed nunc pro tunc (see Copeland at 230), which was not the case here.
In any event, the complaint failed to state a cause of action. The breach of fiduciary duty claim fails since plaintiff did not allege the existence of a fiduciary relationship (see Eurycleia Partners, LP v Seward & Kissel, LLP, 12 NY3d 553, 561-562 [2009]). His fraudulent misrepresentation claim fails since he did not allege that the misrepresentations were made with the intent to deceive him (see Friedman v Anderson, 23 AD3d 163, 167 [2005]). There was also nothing in the complaint asserting defendant either participated in or had knowledge of any alleged fraud (see Handel v Bruder, 209 AD2d 282, 282-283 [1994]).
The record supports the court’s discretionary cancellation of the notice of pendency pursuant to CPLR 6514 (b), since the notice of pendency could not be maintained in the absence of a valid claim (see Jericho Group Ltd. v Midtown Dev., L.P., 67 AD3d 431, 432 [2009], lv denied 14 NY3d 712 [2010]; Sorenson v 257/117 Realty, LLC, 62 AD3d 618, 619 [2009], lv dismissed 13 NY3d 935 [2010]).
We agree with the court that the commencement of the action, without the permission of the court, was frivolous and that sanctions were warranted (see Matter of Rachel’s Trousseau