The High Court has ordered Jason Investments Unlimited Company and three defendants to bear their own costs after the landlord failed to obtain interlocutory relief in a dispute over a jewellery premises.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 25 May 2021, Ms Justice Reynolds resolved the outstanding costs issue arising from the earlier possession proceedings. The court had refused the plaintiff’s application for interlocutory relief in a judgment delivered on 27 February 2020. The May 2021 judgment dealt with costs; it did not determine the defendants’ claim for a new tenancy.
The plaintiff had sought possession on grounds that rent was unpaid and that it had exercised a break option in the lease. The parties accepted that rental arrears stood at €40,128.85 when the interlocutory application issued. By the hearing, the defendants had paid the arrears. The first defendant had also claimed relief under the Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Act 1980 and relief against forfeiture.
The plaintiff argued that it had been forced to go to court to secure its contractual rights and should receive its costs. The defendants opposed that position, relying on the earlier ruling and authorities concerning tenants’ pending claims for new tenancies. They also argued that the plaintiff had failed to disclose a subsidiary trading as Weir & Sons jewellers in the vicinity, and that its purpose in seeking possession was to undermine the first defendant’s intended new-tenancy application.
In deciding costs, the judge took account of the plaintiff’s failure to satisfy any of the cumulative grounds for interlocutory relief and its lack of candour, as described in the earlier judgment. She also considered that the defendants had not cleared the arrears until the application hearing and had failed to pay rent monthly under an undertaking between February and June 2020. The judge acknowledged the difficulties retailers faced during that period because of COVID-related disruption.
The judge said the interlocutory application applied existing principles and raised no new issue of law. Having considered the parties’ conduct and the circumstances of the case, she directed each side to bear its own costs.