The High Court has dismissed Leeds Building Society’s application for possession of an investment property in County Cavan, finding that its claim under the Registration of Title Act 1964 did not meet the requirements for a right acquired before that provision was repealed.
Mr Justice Brian J. McGovern delivered judgment on 11 July 2014 in proceedings brought against Patrick Brady and Margaret Brady. The property was identified as Folio 19230F, County Cavan. The application was made under section 62(7) of the 1964 Act.
The defendants applied for a loan of €900,000 in November 2007. The Society offered €760,000, which was accepted, and the funds were drawn down on 29 November that year. A mortgage deed was executed that day and registered in August 2008. By November 2010, the defendants had about six months of arrears totalling €8,768.10. The Society demanded vacant possession that month.
The case was adjourned in 2012 to allow the parties to explore a resolution. At a without-prejudice meeting in Leeds, the first defendant left a document purporting to be a €900,000 promissory note. The Society disputed that the meeting produced an agreement. The judge found that no agreement had been concluded. The note did not clear the mortgage debt, and the Property Registration Authority later refused the defendants’ request to cancel the charge, finding it was not satisfied the charge had been discharged.
The defendants argued that section 62(7) had been repealed from 1 December 2009 and the Society had no surviving right to seek possession under it because its demand came later. The Society relied on the defendants’ repayment default and also argued that delayed registration of its charge breached the loan terms.
The judge held that the possession claim was based on repayment default, and that the late-registration point had not been raised as a ground in the special summons or the Society’s grounding affidavit. He found no evidence of a registration deadline or prejudice from the delay, and ruled that late registration could not be relied on as an event of default supporting this claim.
Applying the principles in *Start Mortgages Limited v Gunn*, the judge dismissed the possession claim. He noted that a 2013 legislative amendment addressing the legal gap did not apply to proceedings begun before it came into operation on 24 July 2013. The judgment did not absolve the defendants from their obligations under the loan agreement and mortgage; the Society could consider how to proceed.