The Court of Appeal dismissed appeals by Ben Healy and Seamus Spillane challenging Robert McGreal’s appointment as receiver over properties mortgaged to secure loans from Anglo Irish Bank. The appeal concerned three sets of proceedings and the High Court’s 2016 dismissal of the borrowers’ claims, alongside injunctions granted to McGreal on his counterclaim.
The borrowers accepted that the loans remained unpaid and that the properties had been mortgaged as security. They argued, among other things, that McGreal had not been properly appointed, lacked authority to sell the properties, and that the transfer of their loans to Kenmare Property Finance Limited undermined the receivership. They also relied on alleged securitisation of the loans, mortgage-transfer rules and the redaction of parts of the loan-sale agreement.
The Court of Appeal held that the mortgage deeds gave the lender a contractual basis to appoint a receiver with power to sell, independent of statutory powers of sale. It said the later loan sale to Kenmare did not invalidate McGreal’s earlier appointment or the continuing receivership. Questions about who was entitled to receive money recovered were matters between the receiver, IBRC and Kenmare, not the borrowers.
The court found that the Deed of Confirmation and Acknowledgment, together with other evidence, was sufficient to establish that the loans had been transferred to Kenmare. It rejected the argument that the unredacted loan-sale agreement had to be produced, noting the commercial sensitivity of the redacted material. It also said the voluntary Code of Practice on the Transfer of Mortgages could not provide a basis for challenging the receiver’s appointment, while observing that the code could cover loans secured on residential investment properties.
The court upheld the High Court’s conclusion that there was insufficient evidence, on the balance of probabilities, that the loans had been securitised. It said that even if they had been subject to floating charges, that would not by itself invalidate the lender’s security rights.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals. The High Court’s dismissal of the borrowers’ claims and its injunctions enabling McGreal to carry out his receiver and manager functions therefore remained in place. The appellate judgment noted one minor and insignificant exception among the appeal grounds but did not identify it in the concluding passage.