The High Court has discharged an order that gave Paul Connors more time to appeal Circuit Court possession and sale orders made by consent in 2013.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons ruled that Connors had not met the legal test for an extension of time. He said the proposed appeal relied on a technical objection to proof of the Circuit Court’s jurisdiction, and that allowing an appeal about six years after the orders would not serve the interests of justice.
Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank began possession proceedings in 2012 over a mortgage entered into with Connors and Anne Keating in 2005. On 14 November 2013, the Circuit Court made possession and sale orders by consent, each stayed for six months. It also directed that the bank have carriage of the sale. Keating did not participate in the High Court proceedings.
Connors remained in the property. In June 2019, the bank obtained leave from the Circuit Court to seek an execution order. After the bank’s solicitors notified Connors’s former solicitors that the order had been lodged with the Sheriff, Connors applied on 25 October 2019 for more time to appeal the 2013 orders. The Master granted an extension on 25 February 2020. The bank applied three days later to have that order discharged.
Connors’s proposed appeal concerned whether the bank had formally proved that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction. The bank had relied on a 2012 Valuation Office letter stating that the property had not yet been valued for rating purposes. Connors relied on a 2015 High Court judgment criticising letters of that kind. Mr Justice Simons said that judgment had to be read in light of a later Supreme Court decision, which confirmed that the Circuit Court could hear such cases where no rateable valuation had been attributed to the property.
The judge said the evidence in this case fell short of the standard described by the Supreme Court, but considered it unlikely that Connors would succeed on the proposed ground where no jurisdictional objection had been raised at the time. Connors did not argue that a valuation had been determined above the applicable €253.95 limit, or that the case was outside the Circuit Court’s jurisdiction. He had consented to the orders with legal advice.
The court also considered the delay, consent, and Connors’s evidence about anxiety, depression and stress-related symptoms. The judge said there was no serious suggestion that his health had prevented him from managing his affairs or understanding the legal advice. He concluded that the delay was inordinate and that the proposed ground did not go to the justice of the original orders.
The High Court discharged the Master’s extension order. The judge’s provisional view was that the bank should receive its costs of the application, including costs before the High Court and the Master. Connors was given the opportunity to argue for a different costs order, with written submissions to follow if the parties could not agree.