A FATHER, his two sons and their company, who were restrained from reducing their assets below €1 million and had to surrender their passports after failing to pay some €1 million owed to a property services firm, have told the Commercial Court they will pay the money due.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly said yesterday he would vary the court order preventing Thomas Hayden and his sons Paul and Wayne, Burnaby Park, Greystones, Co Wicklow, and their company Tikonito Ltd, from reducing their assets below €1 million in order to allow them pay the money due to Campion Property Consultants Ltd (CPC).
When the money was paid, the freezing order would be discharged, the judge said. The passports would also be returned at that stage, he added.
The judge made the directions after being told yesterday the defendants had a bank draft for €450,000 in court which would be paid over later yesterday and that some €550,000 would also be paid out of a number of bank accounts held by Thomas and Wayne Hayden.
The Haydens were in court on foot of motions to be examined about their assets arising from their failure to meet a judgment mortgage for some €987,359 secured by CPC from the High Court, on consent of the defendants, last month.
The judgment mortgage arose from the defendants' failure to pay CPC by June last some €800,000, plus VAT at 21 per cent and legal costs of some €202,000, in a November 2007 settlement of court proceedings between the sides over property services provided concerning La Touche Hotel in Greystones.
On October 1st last, the High Court continued an order restraining the defendants reducing their assets below €1 million.
In opposing the freezing order, the Haydens said that when they agreed the settlement in November 2007, they anticipated the La Touche Hotel, in which they had invested up to €6 million, would be sold for a substantial sum but, due to the collapse of the property market and uncertainties in the financial market, the property was not sold and Allied Irish Bank had appointed a receiver over it.
In an affidavit, Thomas Hayden also rejected CPC's claims that the defendants intended to dissipate their assets and said CPC had produced no evidence in that regard. Mr Hayden said he and his sons were well settled with their families in Greystones and his sons did not intend moving to Spain.
CPC managing director Tadhg Campion said in an affidavit he believed Paul and Wayne Hayden had obtained franchises for the running of two juice bars in Spain and currently had two juice outlets there with more planned.
Mr Campion said he believed they may already have moved some of their significant assets out of the jurisdiction and he also believed Thomas Hayden had sought to dissipate his own assets with a view to enriching and enhancing the assets of his sons.
From inquiries made, the defendants appeared to have, either jointly or severally or with others, interests in nine properties in Co Wicklow and Co Mayo, Mr Campion added. Those properties appeared to be subject to charges in favour of various financial institutions.
The properties included five houses in Greystones, three houses in Hawthorn Village, Shaleen Road, Castlebar, Co Mayo, and an apartment at Priory Court, Delgany, Co Wicklow.
Mr Campion said he believed Thomas Hayden was the owner of a boutique in Greystones, Class Boutique, which he believed was recently sold for €800,000. He believed the only asset of Tikonito Ltd was the La Touche Hotel to which a receiver had been appointed.
On October 2nd last, the defendants paid the €202,000 legal costs of the plaintiffs of the High Court proceedings. However, because no money was paid relating to the judgment mortgage sum of €987,359, CPC issued motions for the defendants to be examined about their assets.
