The High Court has refused David Doran leave to bring judicial review proceedings over a ground-rent arbitration award and a later vesting certificate, finding his application was brought well outside the applicable time limits.
In a judgment delivered on 12 April 2024, Mr Justice Barry O’Donnell said a challenge to the award should have been brought within three months of the decision in December 2017. He held that the 2022 vesting certificate was an inevitable consequence of the award and that challenging it would amount to a collateral challenge to the earlier decision.
Doran, who represented himself, was the lessor of a property in Stillorgan, County Dublin. The dispute began when Albert Allison applied to acquire the property’s fee simple under ground-rent legislation. Doran objected, including on the basis that rent had allegedly gone unpaid for about 30 years. The Property Registration Authority of Ireland (PRAI), whose functions later transferred to Tailte Éireann, made an arbitration award in Allison’s favour on 21 December 2017.
Doran sought more time to appeal the award in the Circuit Court, but that effort was unsuccessful. He later told the High Court he was challenging the fairness of the PRAI’s procedures, not seeking to relitigate the award. He argued that his judicial review application was in time because he had continued corresponding with the PRAI and received what he regarded as a final response in November 2022.
The vesting certificate was issued on 4 April 2022 in favour of Joyce O’Dwyer, Allison’s successor in title. The judge said the legislation required the PRAI to issue the certificate once the arbitration and any appeal process had concluded and the required conditions were met. It also allowed a successor in title to continue the process.
Even if the certificate could be challenged separately, the judge said, that challenge was also late: it should have been brought within three months of 4 April 2022. Later correspondence with the PRAI did not restart the time limit. Doran had not applied for an extension of time or filed an affidavit explaining the delay, despite being given an opportunity to do so. The judge also noted the potential effect on O’Dwyer’s title.
The court did not decide whether Doran’s substantive grounds met the threshold for leave. The judge said he had doubts about those claims, which appeared to rest on a misunderstanding of the statutory scheme, but based his decision on delay. He refused the application. The judgment expressed a provisional view that the respondent could be entitled to costs and adjourned the matter to 15 May 2024 for submissions on costs or final orders.