Victory for kingscourt duo in repossession case

A Cavan duo who took on the banks in the High Court have won their appeal after a judge decided that a lower court had no jurisdiction to grant a repossession order.
Laura Finnegan and Christopher Ward had been fighting an attempted repossession by Bank of Ireland on undisputed arrears of €14,000 on their Kingscourt home.
On Wednesday of last week in the High Court, Judge Deirdre Murphy ruled in favour of Ms Finnegan and Mr Ward over the property, addressed as 59 Dun Ard, Kells Road, Kingscourt, which they bought for €210,000 on June 23, 2006.
The two defendants chose to represent themselves against the bank throughout the court cases and argued that an application for repossession was incorrectly granted by Cavan Circuit Court on March 18 because the court had no jurisdiction to do so.
They argued that, in law, the value of the property determines what court has the power to hear a case - ie the jurisdiction. The value, therefore, is key to what court can hear it and, in law, could only be calculated from the 'rateable’ value on the property.
However, in 2001, 'domestic dwellings’ were made exempt from rateable valuations - because the home was a family dwelling, it was deemed without a rate and was, in fact, 'unrateable’. Without a value on the property no jurisdiction could possibly be established and therefore their appeal against the bank was granted. This avenue of argument was later closed but it still left the Ard Dun case unaffected.
While there was no official valuation calculated by the Valuation Office to the bank, the court heard that there were often informal, or 'provisional assessment’ valuations sent out by the office and it was this that the bank proceeded to use in the court, about which the judge was critical.
In her judgement Judge Murphy said: “It appears to the court on the evidence that the plaintiff [Bank of Ireland] and others have devised and used an ad hoc non-statutory process, which is devoid of legal effect for the purpose of persuading the Circuit Court that it has a jurisdiction, which it does not in fact enjoy. This is a serious concern to the [High] court.”
She continued: “The standard letter issued by the Valuation Office in this and other cases may be derived from the type of letter issued by them in respect of rateable properties such as off licences, which are in the process of being valued, but the fact is that the content of these letters, however, unintentional, is misleading when applied to domestic premises.
The letter states: 'I refer to your application for certificate showing the rateable valuation for the above property. I regret that I am unable to issue such a certificate as the property is not as yet valued for rating purposes.’
“The clear import of the terminology used is that the property is rateable but not yet rated, when as the Valuation Office well knows, the property is by virtue of the Act not rateable at all. In so far as this practice may be ongoing it should cease forthwith... for the foregoing reasons the court will allow the defendants’ appeal on jurisdiction,” she said.
Bank of Ireland was contacted for a statement following the result but declined to comment on the case.