The High Court vacated a lis pendens over lands in folio 4406F, County Longford, after finding that the action in which it had been registered was not being prosecuted bona fide.
In a judgment delivered on 18 September 2019, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys granted an application by the Collector General under section 123 of the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009. He also directed the Registrar of Deeds and Titles and/or the Property Registration Authority to cancel the lis pendens registered over the folio on 16 April 2019.
The 2019 proceedings were brought by Lucy Pinfold against her husband, John Alex Kane. They sought to prevent him from disposing of interests in specified properties and sought declarations. The judgment records that the Collector General had obtained a judgment against Mr Kane in separate proceedings, Harrahill v Kane, for approximately €4.9 million in unpaid taxes in 2009. A receiver was appointed over Mr Kane’s assets in 2017.
Ms Pinfold applied to register lis pendens over relevant properties on the day her proceedings were filed. The receiver later sought to discharge them. The judgment says the registrations were discharged by consent on 9 July 2019, and the receiver obtained costs against Ms Pinfold, in part on the basis that her action was not being prosecuted bona fide. The order was amended in September, but the lis pendens over folio 4406F had not been included because the property was misdescribed.
The Collector General’s motion to correct that omission was filed on 5 September. The defendant asked for another adjournment to consider the papers. The judge held that Mr Kane was not a necessary or proper party to the application: the statute required notice to the person who had registered the lis pendens, and removal should not worsen the position of the person against whom it was registered.
The court granted the requested relief. On costs, the judge awarded the plaintiff her costs of the present motion against the receiver, whose error had led to the application. He then measured those costs as equivalent to the receiver’s costs on the earlier motion and ordered the two sets of costs set off, leaving no net costs order for the motions taken together.