The High Court has refused Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) DAC leave to execute a 2008 order for possession, ruling that Circuit Court rules bar issuing or renewing an execution order more than 12 years after the underlying judgment.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons delivered judgment on 4 December 2023 in an appeal from the Circuit Court. The appeal concerned an application to execute an order for possession made by a County Registrar on 10 November 2008. That order had been granted in favour of Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Ltd and related to property in County Kildare.
An execution order was issued in March 2010 and renewed several times. Pepper Finance applied in September 2022 for leave to issue execution and to renew the execution order. The Circuit Court refused the application in January 2023 because more than 12 years had passed since the judgment. Pepper Finance appealed. The defendants did not attend the High Court hearing, but Pepper Finance proved service.
Pepper Finance argued that the 12-year limit should be interpreted in line with the rules governing High Court execution and the Statute of Limitations, which it said did not set the same limit on procedural steps to execute a judgment. It also argued that a general rule allowing courts to extend time could apply, and challenged the 12-year restriction as beyond the rule-making committee’s powers.
Justice Simons rejected those arguments. He held that Order 36 of the Circuit Court Rules clearly limits a decree or judgment to 12 years, and that the separate power to extend time for procedural acts could not extend that period. He also rejected the argument that the 12-year limit applied only to execution orders issued through the court office without a judge’s leave.
The court did not decide the challenge to the validity of the rules. Justice Simons said that, hearing the matter on appeal, the High Court was exercising the Circuit Court’s statutory jurisdiction, which could not be used to strike down the Circuit Court Rules. Such a challenge would require separate judicial review proceedings.
The court dismissed Pepper Finance’s application for leave to execute because the 12-year period had expired before the motion was filed. It made no order for costs, noting that the defendants had not attended and could not have incurred recoverable costs.