Eason and Liffey Valley landlords settle rent arrears dispute

The books and stationary group Eason and its Liffey Valley store landlords settled a dispute over rent arrears on Monday.

The Circuit Civil Court had heard that Eason & Son, which pays a rent in the region of €1million a year to Liffey Valley Limited and LV Property Phase 1 Limited, allegedly owed its landlords €423,000 in rent arrears.

Michael Howard, SC, for the landlords, had told Judge Jacqueline Linnane that Eason had effectively given themselves a rent reduction last year by withholding almost a third of €235,000 rent due for the quarter commencing on April 1, 2014.

Mr Howard, who appeared with barrister Michael Vallely, said Eason had continued to withhold a quarter of the rent due for the last two quarters of 2014 and had paid no rent for the first quarter of 2015 which commenced on January 1st last.

Complaints

A claim brought before the Circuit Civil Court related only to a single quarterly rent reduction by Eason of €70,500. The landlord disputed suggestions by Eason in respect of complaints raised by the bookseller last year and denied allegations of shortcomings in its running of the Liffey Valley shopping centre.

Eason had claimed it had reduced its quarterly rent by €70,500 after outlining a number of grievances which it alleged could be summarised as poor estate management by the landlords.

Paul McGarry, SC, who appeared with David Dodd, for Eason & Son had claimed at an earlier hearing that the dispute should have gone to arbitration in line with a clause in the lease agreement. The parties were to have presented final legal submissions on Monday.

Mr McGarry told Judge Linnane that the proceedings had been settled and terms of agreement would be handed into court.