The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction to hear Permanent TSB’s possession proceedings concerning six domestic dwellings mortgaged in 2008, because the properties were not rateable under the Valuation Act 2001.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Gerard Hogan on 28 July 2016, answered five questions referred by the High Court in a case stated. The Court of Appeal addressed the jurisdictional issue; the judgment does not itself set out a final order granting or refusing possession.
Permanent TSB had brought proceedings in the Circuit Court after David Langan defaulted on repayments. In February 2015, Judge Linnane granted possession orders over all six properties and dismissed Langan’s defences. No jurisdictional objection had been raised in that court. Langan appealed to the High Court and later challenged the Circuit Court’s jurisdiction after a High Court ruling in another case had found it lacked jurisdiction over unrateable properties.
The properties comprised five registered properties and one unregistered property. Five were in north County Dublin and one was in Smithfield, Dublin 7. The judgment records that none was Langan’s principal private residence. The mortgages were created in February 2008.
The Circuit Court’s land jurisdiction generally depended on whether a property’s rateable valuation fell below the statutory limit of €253.95. Hogan J concluded that this scheme presupposed that the property was rateable. As domestic dwellings, the properties were not rateable under the 2001 Act.
The court distinguished exceptions introduced by later legislation. Part 10 of the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 gave the Circuit Court jurisdiction over specified mortgage applications for housing loan mortgages created after 1 December 2009. The 2013 Act extended jurisdiction to certain possession proceedings involving principal private residences and earlier mortgages. Neither exception applied to Langan’s case: the mortgages predated December 2009 and the properties were not his principal private residence.
The court answered the first question yes, subject to its answer to the third; it answered the second no. It said that once jurisdiction was put in issue, the Circuit Court could not proceed to judgment concerning a domestic dwelling made unrateable by the 2001 Act unless one of the statutory exceptions applied. Questions about estimating rateable valuation and whether the pleadings and affidavit evidence were sufficient did not arise.
Hogan J noted that the outcome could increase costs and require some possession cases to be brought in the High Court. The supplied judgment extract ends after the proposed answers to the five questions and does not include any further formal order.