Legal bar on sale of Gorse Hill property lifted

A legal bar on the sale of retired solicitor Brian O’Donnell’s former family home should be lifted, the High Court ruled.

Two “lis pendens” - a notice that there is litigation pending on title to a property - were registered on Gorse Hill, Vico Road, Killiney, Co Dublin, on March 3rd last, just after the adult O’Donnell children had left following a failed lenghty court battle.

The notices were registered by Vico Ltd, the Isle of Man sole purpose vehicle set up by the O’Donnell family for the purpose of owning the luxury house.

As they place a question mark over ownership, the lis pendens effectively prevented the sale of the house by a receiver Bank of Ireland appointed to recover €71m owed by Brian O’Donnell and his wife Dr Mary Patricia for unpaid loans advanced to them to buy property.

The bank and receiver asked the court to lift the lis pendens as they were abuse of process and/or frivolous and vexatious and because the issues surrounding Gorse Hill had been fully trashed out in other proceedings.

The application was opposed by Vico who the court heard has been in the control of the four O’Donnell children, Alexandra, Blaise, Bruce and Blake, since July 2012.

From then until December 2012, the O’Donnell parents were Vico’s directors when it was struck off the companies register. It was restored with Bruce and Blake now its current directors.

Mr Justice Brian McGovern ruled the lis pendens had been registered for the “improper purpose of frustration of the bank and receiver from dealing with the property at Gorse Hill”.

He was satisfied the proceedings constituted an abuse of process and Vico, and the O’Donnell children, are prevented from maintaining them on the basis that the matters surround Gorse Hill have already been fully dealt with in other hearings.

They were also vexatious and offended clearly established case law, he said.

Mr Justice McGovern also said that during previous proceedings in which the bank and receiver sought to get possession of the house from the O’Donnell children, the claims made in those hearings were the same as those now being put forward by Vico.

There was a “complete correspondence” between the interest of Vico and the O’Donnell children.

The lis pendens proceedings were a “collateral attack on findings of law and fact in both the High Court and Supreme Court” when they dealt with the O’Donnell children and Gorse Hill, he said.

It was clear these proceedings “are part of a wider co-ordinated campaign by the O’Donnell family” to frustrate the bank and receiver from disposing of Gorse Hill, he said.