The High Court has allowed a statutory receiver to amend pleadings in a dispute over a 2004 land sale, permitting him to add claims for breach of contract and restitution. The ruling concerns the case’s pleadings only; it does not decide the merits of those claims or whether the contractual claim is time-barred.
The proceedings were brought by Jim Stafford, as statutory receiver of Hollioake Limited (in receivership), against Peter, Sheila, Gregory, Angela and Mark Rice. The receiver seeks relief concerning land sold under a contract dated 24 September 2004. The original claim asserted a beneficial interest in the land and sought partition or, alternatively, sale and distribution of the proceeds.
The amendments add a claim that the defendants breached a contractual requirement to deliver deeds of assurance after an intended partition of legal ownership. They also seek repayment of money paid under the contract, on grounds including monies had and received and unjust enrichment. The judgment records that the amended claim includes an aggregate payment of €2,271,000. The defendants argued that the new claims should not be introduced and that restitution must fail because houses had been built and the contract partly performed.
The defendants also argued that the contractual claim was already time-barred when the proceedings began. They said any obligation to deliver the deeds arose in 2006, when the lands were partitioned into separate folios, and that the six-year limitation period had expired before the action was issued in 2013. The court expressly made no finding on whether that claim is time-barred, leaving the question to the trial judge.
Justice Garrett Simons found that allowing the amendments would not cause the kind of limitation prejudice raised in the authorities cited. He also concluded that the proposed claims arose from substantially the same facts as the original pleadings, and that it was not evident on the amendment application that restitution must necessarily fail. Although the defendants pointed to delay, the court noted that the case had not progressed significantly and discovery had not yet been addressed; it found no prejudice from the delay in seeking amendment.
The court granted leave under Order 28, rule 1 of the Rules of the Superior Courts, allowing the amendments in the drafts exhibited in the receiver’s solicitor’s affidavit sworn on 2 July 2020. The receiver was successful on the application. The judge’s provisional view was that he should recover two-thirds of the motion’s costs, with written submissions on any alternative costs order due within 14 days.