The Court of Appeal has overturned a €77,435.77 damages award arising from a disputed contract to sell a Wicklow development site. It found that the purchasers were not entitled to damages in lieu of specific performance after relying on fabricated or false documents to support parts of their claimed losses.
The court did not accept the vendor’s argument that he was entitled to rescind the contract because of alleged misrepresentations about insurance for building work carried out before the sale was agreed. Nor did it award him damages for misrepresentation. The appeal concerned the High Court’s award to Mary Egan of damages instead of an order requiring completion of the sale.
The dispute followed work on Site Four at The Woodlands, Burkeen Hall, before the sale contract was signed. The vendor, Noel Thomas Richard Heatley, wanted evidence that contractor Ciaran Rodgers had insurance covering the period from 3 November to 15 December 2016. The High Court found that Paul Barron, Egan’s agent, led Heatley to believe insurance existed and could be produced, despite serious doubts about whether it did.
The Court of Appeal upheld the conclusion that the alleged insurance assurance did not give Heatley grounds to rescind the contract. It noted that he had signed the agreement without making historic insurance a written condition, while negotiating other insurance protections into the contract. The court also said that, had the insurance assurance otherwise entitled him to avoid the contract, his February 2017 communications made clear that he was ending it; his later attempt to forfeit the deposit would not revive it.
The court reached a different conclusion on the purchasers’ claim for damages. The High Court had found that several documents used to support claimed losses were fabricated or did not reflect genuine liabilities. They included purported timber-frame and storage charges, a windows and doors voucher, an invoice for architectural services that Barron accepted had been made up later, and an unvouched scaffolding claim. The Court of Appeal said the purchasers had relied on false material in evidence to support their damages claim and were therefore disentitled to equitable relief.
The High Court’s decision had awarded damages in lieu of specific performance. The appeal court set aside that relief. It left the High Court costs direction in place provisionally and proposed no order on the appeal costs, subject to either party disputing that proposal by 16 December 2020. The court said Heatley had not established a right to rescind for misrepresentation or to damages on that claim.