An injunction restraining a receiver from selling a dairy farm in Co Cork at what its owners claim could be half the lands’ potential €1.7 million value has been granted by the High Court.
Michael Walsh and Alice Mullins work the lands, where they live with their two sons, and claimed they faced having the lands sold for less than what they are worth. A valuation obtained by them for the lands was more than twice the €830,000 advised minimum valuation (AMV) obtained by receiver, Ken Tyrell, for a sale without vacant possession, they said.
They also argued the receiver’s AMV of €550,000 for commercial forestry lands owned by them was well below an offer of some €1.07 million separately made to them for those lands.
Mr Tyrell was appointed receiver in April 2024 by Everyday Finance DAC, trading as Link Financial, over the couple’s default on commercial loans.
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After Mr Tyrell moved last August to sell the farm and forestry lands via an online auction, the couple went to the High Court. The receiver undertook not to sell the lands pending the court’s decision on their application for injunctions, to apply pending a full hearing of the proceedings, to restrain sale of the lands.
After some adjournments, the injunction application was heard by Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy in late March.
In his recently published judgment, the judge said Mr Walsh and Ms Mullins owned five plots of land, four in Cork and one in Clare. Two plots were the farm lands and the other three were in commercial forestry.
Everyday owns a first legal charge over all five plots after it took over mortgages executed between the couple and Allied Irish Banks in 2009. The couple experienced repayment difficulties from 2013 and had unsuccessful negotiations with AIB, and later Everyday, about resolving their indebtedness. The loans remained in default, with no payments since 2018.
Everyday appointed a receiver in April 2024 after a formal demand for repayment of about €1.8 million, and $331,000 (€291,857), went unpaid.
The judge noted the receiver’s AMV concerning the farmlands described them as “excellent quality lands” extending to some 90 acres with mature boundaries to include the river Black Brook, “good road frontage” and an “ideal location for a one-off house, subject to planning”.
Mr Walsh’s father previously worked the lands and Mr Walsh has worked them for about 45 years, since he was aged 16. While the family home was excluded from the receiver’s planned sale, the couple argued selling the lands without vacant possession, and without inspecting them, was unusual and would depreciate their value. The receiver disputed their claims.
The judge said he would grant an injunction restraining, pending a full hearing of the legal dispute, the sale of the farmlands.
While there may be good reason why the receiver was seeking to sell the farmlands as proposed, the couple had made out a serious issue that the proposed method of sale breaches the duty to take reasonable care to obtain the market value of the properties, he said.
He was satisfied damages would not be an adequate remedy for the couple if the farmlands were sold before the full hearing. They are farmers, this is their only farmland and their source of income and it was “of special value” to them.
The €2.8 million valuation they provided for the farmlands and forestry lands was higher than their total debt to Everyday, he noted.
He refused an injunction restraining sale of the forestry lands for reasons including there was no evidence those were of special value to the couple, there was no repayment of their loans since 2018 and, if the receiver’s sale was below the market value, they had a remedy in damages.
