The High Court has refused Flor Crowley’s application challenging the appointment of a receiver and ordered that the defendants receive their costs of the application, with the amount to be adjudicated if the parties cannot agree.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Mark Sanfey on 24 July 2020, dealt with the orders and costs following an earlier decision on Mr Crowley’s motion for interlocutory relief. In that earlier judgment, delivered on 22 June 2020, the court refused the application. The present judgment did not reopen that decision.
Mr Crowley, who represented himself on the application, asked the court to reserve costs. The defendants sought their costs. He objected that their submissions were delivered one day after the 14-day period allowed by the court and cited other delays, including late entry of an appearance and late affidavits. He also sought a stay on any power of sale over the property until the plenary action was heard.
The court said the earlier motion had principally challenged the validity of the receiver’s appointment. Mr Crowley did not dispute signing the charge in 2002, but argued that the first defendant had not shown it acquired First Active plc’s interest in it. The judge had found that registration of the first defendant’s ownership on the property folio was conclusive evidence of its title to the charge. The earlier judgment also found that the technical objections to the receiver’s appointment lacked merit, that no fair case to be tried had been established, and that damages would be an adequate remedy if wrongful appointment or loss were proved at trial.
In considering costs, the judge acknowledged that the defence of the application had been unsatisfactory in some respects and said the court would have little tolerance for future lapses. But he found that the late filings had not unduly prejudiced Mr Crowley. He said he could not take account of a disputed costs order from separate proceedings when deciding costs in this application.
The judge also declined to consider submissions that effectively asked the court to reconsider the substance of the concluded application. He concluded that a materially different picture was unlikely to emerge at trial on the issues raised in the motion. The defendants were therefore entitled to the application’s costs. The judgment did not decide the plenary action or determine the amount of costs.