Council appeals tenants' right to buy at 1996 price

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is to appeal a High Court ruling that would allow a group of tenants buy their local authority homes at 1996 prices.

Last November, the High Court found in favour of the occupants of four maisonettes at Pearse Close, Sallynoggin, after a 26-year dispute with the council over the right to purchase.

Ms Justice Fidelma Macken held that, since 1995, there had been no legal difficulties preventing sale of the properties.

Allowing 12 months for the authority to make the occupants an offer, she said there had been no justification for further delays beyond that time.

The judge ruled that the occupants should therefore be allowed to buy the half-house maisonettes at July 1996 prices, estimated at €37,000-40,000.

With local authority discounts and first-time buyers' grants, the net sale price of the houses was expected to be under €30,000 each.

But Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown announced yesterday it has lodged an appeal in the four cases to the Supreme Court.

The council said it would be contesting a number of legal points including the weight attached to a series of written requests, beginning in 1979, in which the tenants were asked about their interest in buying the houses.

The tenants argued that from 1979, they had expressed an interest in buying and had a legitimate expectation that they would be able to do so.

The council said it would also contest the ruling that the houses could be bought at 1996 prices.

In the High Court, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown claimed it made no legal representation or offer to sell the maisonettes prior to 1999, "when a qualified offer was made and rejected by the four plaintiffs".

Ms Justice Macken found that, until 1995, the local authority held a reasonable view that there were legal difficulties concerning any sale. But by 1995, she said, the occupiers' legitimate expectation that they would be allowed purchase became a live legal expectation capable of being fulfilled.