The High Court has transferred Pentire Property Finance Designated Activity Company’s claim against Andrew and Janet Corrigan to plenary hearing, finding that the evidence did not establish the capital amount due with enough clarity for summary judgment.
Mr Justice Michael MacGrath delivered the judgment on 3 April 2020. Pentire sought summary judgment for €925,000, the amount originally advanced under a 2007 loan from Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited (BOSI). It limited its summary application to capital and accepted that questions about interest and its calculation should be dealt with at a plenary hearing.
The Corrigans did not dispute signing the facility letter or receiving the €925,000. They argued, among other things, that Pentire had not shown the loan passed through the claimed chain of transfers, that some loans may have been written down before a 2010 merger, and that the amount outstanding was unclear. They also challenged the transfers on regulatory grounds and disputed the interest calculation.
The judge rejected the transfer arguments as grounds for defending the claim. He found that the loan passed from BOSI to Bank of Scotland plc through a 2010 cross-border merger, and that the defendants’ claims about a possible 40% write-down were speculative. Relying on earlier decisions, he also rejected the argument that the transfers were invalid because the entities involved were allegedly unauthorised. He found that Pentire did not accept deposits and did not require a licence under the Central Bank Act 1971. The facility letter recorded the Corrigans’ acknowledgment that they were acting within their business, trade or profession when taking the loan.
But the court had no evidence of transactions or repayments between the mortgage’s execution in 2008 and the merger in 2010. The judge said the plaintiff had to establish a prima facie basis for the amount claimed. Evidence that €925,000 was originally advanced did not show that the same amount remained due as capital, separate from interest. The plaintiff’s witness had not provided a breakdown of the claimed figure.
The court therefore transferred the entire claim, including capital and interest, to plenary hearing. It found no arguable defence apart from the dispute over quantum, the division between capital and interest, and liability for interest. No summary judgment was entered.