The High Court has refused an injunction sought by Lucy Ewins to stop the completion of a sale of a Galway property and prevent interference with her use of it. The interlocutory decision does not determine her underlying claims, which remain for trial.
Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger delivered judgment on 20 September 2024, following an urgent hearing on 13 September. The property at 72 The Rise, Knocknacarra, is jointly owned by Ewins and her estranged husband. A receiver appointed by Promontoria Scarriff Designated Activity Company purported to sell it at auction on 24 July 2024; it was sold to a third party.
Ewins sought interim relief on two grounds: that the property was her principal private residence and the sale breached the Central Bank’s Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears; and that the lender had denied her right to redeem the mortgage. The defendants disputed that she lived at the property, relying in part on evidence that it had been rented and that she lived in Dublin. Ewins said she had lived there since 2012, sometimes with others, and her adult son supported her account.
The judge refused relief on the principal-residence ground because Ewins had previously brought a substantially similar injunction application in the same proceedings. That application was struck out by consent in April 2024, when she had legal representation. Applying the Court of Appeal’s decision in *Small v Bank of Ireland*, the judge held that pursuing the standalone ground again was an abuse of process.
On redemption, the judgment records emails exchanged in the hours before the auction. Ewins’s negotiator said funding was available to pay the balance, but no repayment was made before the sale. The judge found the communications and funding arrangements amounted neither to repayment nor to a tender of money that could be treated as the lender’s on-demand. She also found the draft loan agreement relied on by the negotiator appeared incapable of execution in its current form: it required documents affecting the property but did not address the rights of Ewins’s joint owner, who was not a party.
The court therefore found no fair question to be tried at this stage that Ewins’s right of redemption had been unlawfully restricted or denied. It refused the interlocutory application, finding that interim relief was not appropriate and that the least risk of injustice did not favour granting it. The judgment expressly leaves Ewins entitled to pursue both claims at trial and to seek remedies, including damages, if successful.