The High Court has upheld a Circuit Court order granting Bank of Ireland possession of a Foxrock family home, finding that the borrowers had defaulted on principal repayments under their mortgage.
Ms Justice O’Regan delivered the ex tempore judgment on 15 January 2020 in two appeals brought by Adrian Blanc and Lucille Blanc. The case concerned 36 Brighton Avenue, Foxrock, Dublin 18, registered in their names and described in the judgment as their family home.
The mortgage was originally granted by ICS Building Society, which offered a €1.7 million loan in March 2008, repayable over 15 years. Bank of Ireland became successor to part of ICS’s business in 2014. The Circuit Court granted the bank possession on 11 April 2019; the borrowers appealed.
The borrowers raised several challenges, including that the loan terms were unfair and that the bank’s handling of interest rates and its tracker mortgage review was improper. The bank disputed those claims. The High Court said the tracker review findings could not be investigated in this appeal: challenging them would require full plenary proceedings. It also said the borrowers’ general claim of unfair terms was unsustainable, and that documents they relied on for their interest-rate argument were hearsay and could not provide substantial evidence in this case.
The judge stressed that the appeal concerned possession only. The court was not asked to decide the current amount owed. It had to determine whether there was a repayment default sufficient to support possession proceedings, and whether the required three-month period between threat of legal proceedings and filing had been observed. The judgment said the threat was made in November 2015 and proceedings began in September 2016, beyond that period.
The judgment recorded that principal repayments were due from March 2011. The largest payment shown was about €3,941, paid once in June 2011, while the minimum monthly principal repayment was about €8,800. The judge concluded that substantial principal arrears established default by the bank’s January 2016 demand, without needing to resolve the interest-rate dispute.
She therefore found the bank was entitled under the mortgage terms to call in the indebtedness and seek possession, and upheld the Circuit Court’s possession order. The judgment made no determination of the amount currently owed.