The High Court has struck out Eugenie Houston’s claim challenging judgment mortgages registered against her property, finding that the mortgages were properly certified and that the claim sought to reopen issues decided in earlier proceedings.
Mr Justice Liam Kennedy also ordered that a lis pendens lodged by Ms Houston be vacated. He found it had not been lodged in pursuit of a bona fide action. The judge refused a stay of those orders. He did not determine the costs of the latest proceedings, giving the parties time to file brief submissions and estimates before a further hearing on 12 April 2024.
Ms Houston’s claim alleged that three judgment mortgages registered in 2017 did not meet a certification requirement under the Land Registration Rules. She said the mortgages were wrongly registered and that the defendant, solicitor Wendy Doyle, had continued to rely on them despite knowing of the alleged defect. The claim sought, among other relief, rectification of the property register.
Ms Doyle sought to have the case struck out as an abuse of process, arguing that it repeated matters dealt with in previous litigation. Her evidence included copies of the mortgage affidavits bearing court certification and Property Registration Authority (PRA) registration confirmations. The judge said the three High Court order affidavits were certified on 25 July 2017, before registration. He accepted the PRA’s contemporaneous confirmation that the mortgages had been registered in accordance with the rules.
The judge said earlier versions of the affidavits, exhibited in the 2017 well-charging proceedings, did not show completed certification. But he found that this did not establish fraud or invalidate the registrations. He concluded that Ms Houston had not identified evidence of deliberate dishonesty or a new matter that could justify reopening the earlier decisions. He also found that the certification issue could have been raised in the well-charging proceedings at the time.
Mr Justice Kennedy noted that Ms Houston had not filed a replying affidavit in this case despite repeated opportunities, and refused her requests to adjourn the hearing or give oral evidence. He found the claim was precluded by earlier determinations and was frivolous or vexatious, bound to fail, and an abuse of process. The claim was struck out under Order 19, rule 28 of the Rules of the Superior Courts, with the judge also citing the court’s inherent jurisdiction.
The judgment mortgages arose from costs orders made against Ms Houston in earlier defamation and District Court proceedings. Those orders were not appealed, and earlier High Court and Court of Appeal decisions had upheld enforcement steps based on them. The latest ruling concerns Ms Houston’s 2023 claim; it does not reopen those prior proceedings.