The High Court has ordered P. Elliott and Company Ltd to complete a property agreement with Patrick O’Connor concerning his family premises at 1A and 2 Usher’s Quay in Dublin 8.
O’Connor sought specific performance, a court order requiring the agreed transaction to be carried out. He said an oral agreement reached with company director Mark Elliott at the Merchant Café on February 27, 2007 was subsequently recorded in correspondence between the parties’ solicitors.
The property had been owned by O’Connor’s family for many years and housed its printing business. The dispute arose against the background of Elliott’s development of neighbouring property at 3-10 Usher’s Quay.
The parties discussed an arrangement involving €860,000 in relation to O’Connor’s premises. Separate negotiations concerned the basement and subsoil, with a further figure of €100,000 eventually recorded in correspondence.
Two letters from the developer’s solicitors, dated June 5 and July 18, 2007, were central to the case. Both were marked “without prejudice”. Elliott argued that this prevented their use as evidence of an enforceable agreement.
Mr Justice Roderick Murphy rejected that position. He found the correspondence was not written as part of an attempt to settle an existing dispute, which is the usual basis for without-prejudice protection. The label alone therefore did not make the letters inadmissible.
The judge found that by July 18 the parties were in agreement on the substantial terms. Later correspondence attempted to revisit when the €100,000 relating to the basement would become payable, but the court held that this did not undo the agreement already reached.
Murphy J. also found that the developer’s solicitor had acted with authority from the company and that the written correspondence satisfied the Statute of Frauds requirement for written evidence of a land agreement.
The court ordered specific performance of the agreements evidenced by the June 5 and July 18 letters. The order covered the arrangements for development and subsequent purchase of the Usher’s Quay property, including the basement and subsoil.