The High Court ordered four properties transferred into the sole name of a woman in a judicial separation case and reduced monthly maintenance to €2,400 in total. The decision followed a rehearing of issues remitted by the Supreme Court and later applications concerning the respondent’s financial disclosure and unpaid maintenance.
Mr Justice Michael White said the court had found that the respondent withheld material information about his financial affairs during the original High Court proceedings, the Supreme Court appeal and the rehearing. Bank records obtained under court order revealed an undisclosed Bank of Ireland account. The judgment also recorded company payments to the respondent from 2009 to 2012 that had not been disclosed, and said he had sworn untrue information in an affidavit of means.
The original High Court order in 2010 had set annual maintenance of €50,000 for the applicant, €400 per month for each of their two children, and other specified expenses. The Supreme Court later ordered interim payments of €2,400 per month to the applicant and €800 per month for the children while the matter was remitted. The judge said the respondent had not paid the applicant’s interim maintenance and had stopped paying the children’s maintenance by the time of the judgment. Arrears and credits were recorded as €158,694 at the June 2012 hearing.
The applicant sought the family home in Castleknock, Dublin 15, and three rental properties in Tallaght, Newmarket Square and Castleknock, subject to their existing mortgages. The court noted that the rental properties were in negative equity. It considered the family home’s equity could help provide for the applicant and children if maintenance continued to go unpaid, and said transfer of the four properties was appropriate. The court had earlier stopped directing rent from a Ballymount unit to the applicant after a mortgagee appointed a fixed charge receiver; it said it no longer had jurisdiction over that unit.
The judge held that the court could vary the 2010 order despite the Supreme Court’s remittal, while seeking to maintain the intent and balance of the Supreme Court’s orders. He varied monthly maintenance to €1,600 for the applicant and €400 for each child. The judgment states that the transfers are subject to existing mortgages. It does not set out the mortgages’ balances or specify the steps required to complete the transfers.