The High Court found that occupants of two Dublin properties were in deliberate breach of injunctions requiring them to surrender possession, but adjourned applications for attachment and committal to allow time for further compliance efforts and submissions.
In a judgment delivered on 13 August 2021, Mr Justice Mark Sanfey said the occupants of 21 Little Mary Street, Dublin 7, and 31 Richmond Avenue, Fairview, Dublin 3, had not complied with orders made by Ms Justice Reynolds on 25 November 2020. Those orders required them to hand over possession and access devices and restrained them from obstructing the lender’s efforts to secure and deal with the properties.
Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) DAC sought attachment and committal, a process that can include imprisonment, arguing that the occupants had been served with the orders and continued to remain in the properties. The occupants challenged the applications, raising concerns about service and the validity of the injunctions. Some said they had not learned of the orders until late February 2021, when they obtained legal representation.
Justice Sanfey accepted that the criminal standard of proof—beyond reasonable doubt—applied to the alleged contempt, while explaining that the application was not a criminal trial. He found that the injunctions were valid and regular, and that service had complied with the court’s directions. He also rejected arguments that the wording of the penal endorsements or the Court of Appeal’s short extension of a stay for two occupants invalidated service.
However, because the orders had not been delivered to occupants at their individual apartments, he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that each occupant knew of the orders when they were first served or had then consciously chosen to disobey them. The judge said the occupants’ awareness and the consequences of non-compliance were beyond doubt after they had legal representation from February 2021. Taking account of events through the May hearing, he found deliberate breach.
The judgment recounted that possession orders had been made against the original mortgagor in 2008 and confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2014. The occupants argued that they faced severe disruption and difficulty finding alternative accommodation; the judge acknowledged those circumstances but found no legal basis for them to remain.
Justice Sanfey did not make the requested committal orders at that stage. He adjourned the matter to 30 August 2021 for the parties to address what orders should be made, and said the occupants should demonstrate significant progress toward compliance. He indicated that, without such progress, the reliefs sought in the applications would be granted. The judgment does not record what orders were ultimately made after the adjournment.