The High Court has ordered that the Varied Estate at Courtview, Castle Avenue, Clontarf, be vested in Courtview Management (No. 2) Limited, a new management company formed by apartment and townhouse owners. The order is subject to existing apartment leases and specified rights benefiting No. 50 Castle Avenue and lands conveyed for five houses.
In a judgment delivered on 24 November 2006, Miss Justice Laffoy found that the original developer, Heidelstone Company Limited, held the property on trust for Courtview Management Limited when the developer was dissolved. She also found that the management company held the beneficial interest for the apartment lessees and their successors, who were the ultimate beneficiaries.
Both companies had been struck off the companies register for failing to make annual returns: Heidelstone in 1990 and Courtview Management in 1993. The original plan to transfer the development’s common areas to the management company had not been completed, leaving owners with incomplete title. The application was made under section 26 of the Trustee Act 1893 to vest the companies’ interests in the new management company.
The property covered by the application had changed from the original development plan. Heidelstone sold the rear area to Langarth Properties Limited in 1987, and Langarth built and sold five houses there. An option exercised in July 1987 also removed No. 50 Castle Avenue from the scheme. The Varied Estate was No. 52 Castle Avenue and adjoining unbuilt land.
The judge said the State had no claim to the Varied Estate under the State Property Act 1954, citing the Minister for Finance’s position in 1997. State authorities had been notified of the proceedings, but none intervened.
The order preserves the leases of the apartments at No. 52 and easements, rights and privileges benefiting No. 50 and the lands conveyed to Langarth. It was not to be perfected until the applicants’ solicitors filed an affidavit exhibiting correspondence with a former director, who had consented, and confirming that the two house owners who had not joined the application were notified and had either raised no objection or not responded within two weeks. If either objected, the matter was to be relisted to hear the objection.
The judgment said a possible future restoration of Heidelstone to the register would not undermine the vesting order, because any restored interest would remain subject to the trusts established in evidence.