The High Court has found that Everyday Finance DAC and two receivers have a strong case for interlocutory relief in a dispute over a rented property at 96 Avoca Park, Blackrock. It said orders should enable the receivers to take possession, but did not make a final possession order in this judgment: it proposed to hear the parties on the precise terms.
The proceedings concern a mortgage over the property, which Paul White and Jane Gleeson jointly owned. Everyday Finance says it acquired the mortgage and loan rights from Allied Irish Banks. The receivers, Stephen Tennant and Nicholas O’Dwyer, say the defendants did not cooperate with requests for tenancy and rental records, and that they could not establish how many people occupied the property. White said it had initially been let to one person, who had caused about 15 people to occupy it. The judgment records that the property was not said to be a family home and neither defendant lived there.
The dispute includes a €2.75 million loan made by AIB to White in 2008. The plaintiffs said the 1998 mortgage secured that later loan and the defendants were in substantial arrears. White argued that Gleeson was not a borrower under the 2008 loan and challenged whether her interest in the property secured it. The defendants also questioned the transfer of the mortgage and the receivers’ appointments, citing incorrect dates in documents. The plaintiffs said the dates were clerical errors.
Because the relief sought was mandatory in effect, the judge applied the test of whether the plaintiffs had a strong case likely to succeed at trial. He concluded that they had met that test. He found the incorrect “1988” date in the receiver appointment schedule did not invalidate the appointment, and that the “1996” date in the transfer schedule was a typographical error. He also held that the registered ownership of the mortgage could be relied on in this application. The court did not resolve the underlying dispute about Gleeson’s liability or whether she consented to the 2008 loan security; it said those issues did not have to be decided at this stage.
In considering the interim arrangements, the judge said the property’s occupation and rent position were unsatisfactory. He considered it appropriate to make orders allowing the plaintiffs to take possession, while proposing a stay on any sale until the proceedings were determined or the parties agreed otherwise. He said rent collected could be held in escrow and that the receivers could seek to regularise arrangements with occupiers. The parties were to be heard further on the precise orders.