Solicitor Brian O’Donnell and his wife, Mary Patricia, are trespassing on the former family home in Killiney, Co Dublin, a High Court judge ruled on Thursday.
Mr Justice Brain McGovern told Mr O’Donnell he and his wife have to be “out of the property” by 5pm today and have until then to remove their belongings.
He was speaking after refusing Mr O’Donnell’s application for a six-month stay on the judge’s order preventing Mr O’Donnell interfering with a receiver’s right to take over the luxury house, Gorse Hill, on Vico Road.
Mr O’Donnell said such a short stay as 5pm Friday was “not very reasonable”.
The judge had given Bank of Ireland an order preventing the couple interfering with receiver Tom Kavanagh who was previously granted possession of Gorse Hill. The receiver wishes to sell the house, valued at about €7 million, to meet part of a €71.5 million debt owed by the O’Donnells.
In his decision, Mr Justice McGovern said the bank had met the test for an injunction.
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The purpose of the injunction was to maintain the status quo pending a full hearing of the O’Donnells’ latest legal action in which they seek to raise issues surrounding the appointment of the receiver and the efficacy of the loan and security documents.
The O’Donnells may be faced with an argument based on the legal principle that bars them from denying or making new allegations because of their previous conduct (the doctrine of estoppel), he said.
When he previously heard a challenge by the O’Donnell children to the receiver taking possession of the house, he had remarked neither Mr or Mrs O’Donnell were called to give evidence, the judge said. Mr O’Donnell “would be uniquely placed” to have confirmed issues surrounding ownership of Gorse Hill which was found by the courts to be Vico, he said.
There had also been no satisfactory explanation as to why the parents were not joined in the children’s case to assert a right of residence which they were now asserting, he said. He rejected Mr O’Donnell’s claim they had not been given enough time to respond to the receiver’s trespass proceedings.
