A judge has told a landlord to pay back more than €5,000 to a house-owner after he tried to "up the ante" on the buy-out of a ground rent.
Dublin Circuit Civil court heard that Mr John Brady (34), Tamarisk Avenue, Kilnamanagh, Tallaght, bought the house in 1975. Mr Brady applied to acquire the fee simple in the property in 2002.
The defendant, Newstate Ltd, Molesworth St, Dublin, offered to sell its fee simple interest in the land for €1,093, which included €855 for arrears of ground rent up to July 2002. Then in August 2002 Newstate Ltd resiled from its agreement because of a purported mistake about the price it had quoted to Mr Brady. Newstate Ltd represented the normal purchase price for the freehold as €7,500. Mr Brady then purchased the fee simple for €6,500.
Judge Miriam Reynolds Buckley said she could find no basis in law for Newstate's managing director, solicitor Mr Stephen Miley, concluding that the landlord was entitled to benefit from changes in residential density zoning by South Dublin County Council. She set aside the €6,500 purchase agreement and fixed terms for purchase of the freehold in the original amounts.