A Wicklow site buyer has been awarded €77,435.72 in damages after the High Court found the seller had refused to complete a binding contract for sale. The court also declared that she was entitled to the return of her €7,377.50 deposit, held by the seller’s solicitors as stakeholder.
Mr Justice Allen ruled that the contract was not conditional on the buyer providing evidence that her contractor had insurance for work carried out before 15 December 2016. The seller, Noel Thomas Richard Heatley, had argued that the buyer, Mary Egan, misrepresented whether the contractor was insured and that the contract was unenforceable. The judge rejected that case and dismissed Heatley’s counterclaim for rescission and damages, including a claim for assault.
The dispute followed work on the site by contractor Ciaran Rodgers, who had not produced an insurance policy despite repeated requests. At a meeting on 26 January 2017, the parties negotiated a written sale contract for €90,800. The contract included a condition requiring Egan to provide insurance indemnifying Heatley, his building company and purchasers of two adjoining sites. The judge found that it did not make production of insurance evidence for the earlier period a condition of the sale.
The judge found that an altercation between Heatley and Egan’s husband, Paul Barron, on the site in December 2016 was unpleasant but did not amount to an assault. Barron had been joined as a plaintiff, although he was not a party to the sale contract. His claim was dismissed.
Egan had initially pursued specific performance, then elected at trial to seek damages instead. The award includes €2,586 for self-build insurance premiums, €3,758 in legal fees, €29,391.72 for the value of work left on the site, €29,200 in rent, €2,500 for moving costs and €10,000 in general damages. The judge rejected other claims, including design fees and alleged expenditure on building work that was unsupported by adequate evidence.
The court limited Egan’s costs to two-thirds of the costs of two trial days, citing poor preparation and the plaintiffs’ failure to recognise that several documents relied on in support of damages were fake. The counterclaim was dismissed with no order as to its costs.