Deirdre Dennis loses bankruptcy annulment bid in High Court

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Deirdre Dennis’s application to annul her bankruptcy was refused by the High Court in a judgment delivered on 19 May 2020. She had sought to overturn the adjudication made on 23 October 2017.

Ms Justice Pilkington found that Dennis’s bankruptcy had already been discharged and that the grounds relied upon did not relate directly to the bankruptcy process. She declined the annulment and certificate of annulment orders sought, and made no order on the requests for documents and the return of property vested in the Official Assignee.

The judge accepted Dennis’s account that she would probably not have considered bankruptcy if the indebtedness to Bank of Ireland Mortgage and the related difficulties over her family home had not existed.

In a letter Dennis received on 1 February 2019, Bank of Ireland Mortgages apologised for failing to provide her with a tracker mortgage rate to which she was entitled. It accepted that the failure was a factor in her losing ownership of her home and said it had withdrawn its bankruptcy claim.