The Court of Appeal has dismissed Gerald Stephens’s appeal against a High Court order requiring him to complete a mortgage and charge securing a €400,000 loan from ACC Loan Management Limited.
In a judgment delivered on 27 July 2017, Ms Justice Irvine concluded that the High Court was entitled to find that ACC had a binding agreement with Dr Stephens and his wife, Maryanne Stephens, to provide a first legal charge over their interests in land and a dwelling house in County Mayo. The Court of Appeal upheld the orders against Dr Stephens. Mrs Stephens was not a party to this appeal; a registrar had already executed the deed on her behalf under an earlier court order.
ACC said it advanced the loan in March 2004 in reliance on the agreed security, but the deed was not completed. Its case was that the defendants later refused to provide the charge. The High Court had declared ACC entitled to the charge and directed Dr Stephens to complete the deed, with an officer of the court authorised to do so if he defaulted.
Dr Stephens argued that ACC had delayed unreasonably, that its claim was barred by an earlier judgment for the unpaid debt, and that the trial judge had denied him a fair hearing and should have recused himself. He also relied on a “no transaction” defence. ACC disputed those arguments.
The appeal court found no basis to overturn the High Court’s rejection of the delay defence. It noted that the Stephens had given assurances that they would sign the deed and that a former solicitor had separately brought proceedings seeking the same relief. The court also said Dr Stephens had produced no evidence that ACC’s delay caused him prejudice, which was required for the defence of laches.
The earlier debt case did not bar ACC’s claim for security, the court held. That case sought repayment of the loan; these proceedings sought enforcement of the separate obligation to provide a first legal charge. The court said the security claim could not have been included in the summary summons used to seek the debt judgment.
The court also rejected the “no transaction” argument, finding the cited decision concerned a different dispute and did not undermine the Stephens’ agreement to provide security. It concluded that the trial judge’s limits on questioning concerned matters outside the issues to be decided and that Dr Stephens had not established bias or an unfair hearing.
The appeal was dismissed. The Court of Appeal’s decision left the High Court’s orders in place; the judgment did not itself state that the deed had been completed on Dr Stephens’s behalf.