The High Court dismissed James Moley’s claim to a disputed plot at Wavecrest Drive, Blackrock, and ordered the lis pendens registered against the land to be vacated. It made no order on the defendant’s counterclaim and deferred the costs issue pending information about the plot’s rateable valuation.
The judgment, delivered by Miss Justice Laffoy on 27 April 2007, concerned land registered in the name of Thomas Fee, who died in January 2005. Colin Fee, his personal representative, was substituted as defendant. The court identified uncertainty about the precise boundaries and folio references. For the purposes of its decision, it treated the disputed plot as the area shown in an aerial photograph, apparently comprising less than one-fifth of an acre.
Moley claimed through Patrick McEneaney and Gerard Cumiskey, who said they agreed in 1975 to buy parts of the plot from Thomas Fee for IR£300 each. The judge was satisfied that Fee orally agreed to sell them the whole plot, divided into two portions, and that they each parted with the agreed sum. She also accepted that Cumiskey put a mobile home on the land in 1975, but removed it after An Bord Pleanála refused planning permission in June 1977.
The court was not satisfied that Fee received any of the purchase money. The evidence did not establish that money paid to solicitors was passed on to him, and the conveyancing transaction was never completed. The judge also found that, after 1977, neither McEneaney nor Cumiskey occupied the plot or exercised ownership acts that amounted to possession for limitation purposes. Both had lost interest in it after planning permission was refused. By contrast, the evidence showed that Fee continued to exercise acts of ownership.
Moley had acquired whatever interest the former buyers had, the judge found, but that gave him no title to the plot. She concluded that the 1975 transaction had been abandoned or impliedly terminated after the planning refusal, and that Fee remained owner until his death.
The defendant’s counterclaim alleged trespass and slander of title and sought an injunction and damages. The court made no order on it, finding neither injunctive relief nor a declaration necessary and no evidence of damage to Fee or his estate. Costs were left for later determination.