Start Mortgages Designated Activity Company v Sullivan and Another

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: High Court
• Judge: Mr. Justice Mark Heslin
• Judgment Date: 28 November 2025
• Neutral Citation: [2025] IEHC 681
• Docket Number: RECORD NO. 2025/129CA

Between

Start Mortgages DAC

Plaintiff/Respondent

and

Paul Sullivan and Catherine Sullivan

Defendants/Appellants

[2025] IEHC 681

RECORD NO. 2025/129CA

THE HIGH COURT

Possession of property – Admissibility of evidence – Declaratory relief – Defendants seeking to vacate orders – Whether new evidence should be admitted

Facts: The Circuit Court (Judge McAleese), on 8 April 2025, dismissed the motion of the second defendant, Ms Sullivan, in which the defendants sought to vacate previous orders made by the Circuit Court, in particular, an order made on 7 December 2021 (Judge Comerford) which granted the plaintiff, Start Mortgages DAC, possession of property at Taghart North, Shercock, Cavan (the property) with a stay on execution of three months (the possession order).The defendants appealed to the High Court from the 8 April 2025 order. On 25 June 2025, the first defendant, Mr Sullivan, issued a motion, seeking to adduce additional evidence for the purposes of the said appeal. The defendants also appealed against the order made on 28 October 2025 (Judge Browne) which dismissed the defendants’ July 2025 motion wherein a range of declarations were sought, to the effect that: the Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to make the possession order; the plaintiff lacked entitlement to sue in its own name or enforce a credit agreement; the plaintiff committed statutory and constitutional breaches; and the defendants were entitled to an order for expenditure and losses since 2017.

Held by Heslin J that were the High Court to admit new evidence, it would be to breach the Murphy test (Murphy v Minister for Defence [1991] 2 IR 161). He held that the defendants had come nowhere near establishing that there had been a breach of constitutional justice which would justify the revisiting of final orders. He held that the defendants’ motions constituted a clear abuse of process by individuals who chose: (i)not to participate in the Circuit Court possession proceedings; (ii) not to challenge the substitution of the plaintiff in those proceedings; (iii) not to appear at the hearing; (iv) not to appeal the Circuit Court possession order; (v) not to seek an extension of time to appeal; (vi) to ventilate a myriad of issues by means of a private ‘process’, of their design, outside of the legal possession proceedings, which the plaintiff had no obligation to engage with, which ‘process’ was as meaningless as it was unfair; (vii) to ‘rely’ on the outcome of that ‘process’ to take the stance that the legal proceedings were void, that the plaintiff had no standing and that the orders made in the proceedings were void; (viii) to bring motions, years later, in proceedings which had run their full course and were ‘spent’; (ix) to seek to set aside a possession order after it had been executed and had served its purpose; (x) to raise, in support of their motions, issues which the defendants could have raised, but chose not to raise, in the proceedings; (xi) to ‘pepper’ their applications with allegations of misrepresentation, fraud, deception and criminality on the part of others, which allegations were baseless and scandalous.

Heslin J held that the defendants’ applications were utterly without merit and constituted an abuse of process. He dismissed the defendants' appeals.

Appeals dismissed.

JUDGMENT of Mr. Justice Mark Heslin delivered on the 28 ^th day of November 2025

Introduction

1 . On 8 April 2025, the Circuit Court (his Honour Judge McAleese) dismissed the second named defendant's motion, in which the defendants sought to vacate previous orders made by the Circuit Court, in particular, an order made on 7 December 2021 (his Honour Judge Comerford) which granted the plaintiff possession of property at Taghart North, Shercock, Cavan (“the property”) with a stay on execution of three months (the “possession order”). The defendants have appealed the 8 April 2025 order.

2 . On 25 June 2025, the first named defendant issued a motion, seeking to adduce additional evidence for the purposes of the said appeal.

3 . The defendants also appeal against the order made on 28 October 2025 (her Honour Judge Browne) which dismissed the defendants' (July 2025) motion wherein a range of declarations were sought, to the effect that the Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to make the possession order; the plaintiff lacked entitlement to sue in its own name or enforce a credit agreement; the plaintiff committed statutory and constitutional breaches; and that the defendants were entitled to an order for expenditure and losses since 2017.

Representation

4 . The foregoing came for hearing before me on 12 November 2025. Mr. Newman BL represented the plaintiff. The first named defendant moved the applications on behalf of both defendants. The papers with which I was furnished ran to a dozen folders in two full banker's boxes. The voluminous nature of same would seem to reflect two things. First, as was their entitlement, the defendants chose not to avail of legal representation, however, this resulted in a ‘scattergun’ approach to their applications, with a multiplicity of, often overlapping, assertions being made. Second, the central points made by the defendants are repeated, time and again, in correspondence, affidavits and in various sets of written submissions. I have considered all of the foregoing.

What this judgment is not about

5 . Before proceeding further it is important to note that this Court did not hear an appeal against the possession order, which was made 4 years ago. It had no jurisdiction to do so. Why? Because the defendants never appealed that order. I emphasise this at the very outset because, in substance, the affidavits sworn by the first named defendant and his submissions, both written and oral, comprise of arguments as to why possession should not have been granted to the plaintiff.

6 . Given that the defendants' objection to making of the possession order is at the very ‘heart’ of all 3 applications, coupled with the fact that the defendants, as non-lawyers, would not appear to appreciate certain basic principles of relevance to these applications, I felt it appropriate to explain in considerable detail the reasons for this Court's decision. To do so requires a setting out of the very particular history of these proceedings, which began ‘life’ in 2017 and I propose to do so in chronological order, as follows.

2017 Civil Bill seeking possession

7 . The Civil Bill for possession was issued on 20 July 2017 bearing record number 2017/00210 (“the Civil Bill”) and the original plaintiff was “ Permanent TSB plc formerly Irish Life & Permanent plc”. With regard to the Circuit Court's jurisdiction, the Civil Bill expressly pleads inter-alia:

“28. The market value of the property does not exceed €3 million and the plaintiff claims

(a) An order for possession of the mortgaged property described in the schedule hereto pursuant to Order 5B of the Rules of the Circuit Court…”

Jurisdiction

8 . The jurisdiction of the Circuit Court (and of this Court on appeal) is a statutory one, created by section 22 (1) of the Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act, 1961 (“the 1961 Act”). Section 45 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 introduced a definition of “market value” in place of “rateable valuation” and increased the monetary value from “£200” to “€3 million”. Furthermore, section 53 A (1) of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 creates a presumption as to market value, meaning that where a plaintiff in Circuit Court proceedings pleads that the market value does not exceed €3 million “… it shall, in the proceedings concerned, be presumed, until the contrary is proved, that the market value of such land does not exceed the foregoing amount”.

9 . In light of the foregoing, the Circuit Court undoubtedly had jurisdiction to deal with the possession proceedings. I am fortified in this view by the decision in Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank v. Finnegan & Anor [2015] IEHC 304 (“ BOIM v. Finnegan”) delivered by Ms. Justice Murphy, on 20 May 2015. In BOIM v Finnegan, the learned Judge addressed the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court to hear the plaintiff's claim for possession of the defendant's home. Having regard to the analysis contained therein, there can be no doubt about the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court to deal with the plaintiff's claim, which resulted in the possession order. For the sake of completeness, even though the defendants repeatedly assert that the Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction, in their appeals to this Court they have taken no issue with the market value of the property and have not, in fact, challenged the statutory jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.

No Appearance

10 . It is common case that, despite having been served with the Civil Bill, the defendants chose not to enter any Appearance and they neither retained legal representation, nor swore any affidavits in opposition to the possession claim.

The defendants' actions

11 . Instead of engaging in any way with the claim for possession, the defendants chose to write directly to a named director of the plaintiff, by means of what the defendants describe as a “ Notary Sealed Statement of Truth of Paul & Catherine Sullivan sworn 13th February 2019” (“the Statement”).

13 February 2019 — Statement

12 . The Statement contained a list of questions 1 to 8, and 9 (a) to (y), and included inter alia the following:

“Is it a true fact that within the above notice of demand dated 14/02/19 I/we did state that I/we did not accept and I/we did not consent to the content or import of any Start Mortgages DAC correspondences in their entirety including but not limited to offers of any kind, any assertions of alleged fact, any allegations of debt owing or financial obligations, any offers of legal proceedings, any presumption of existence of contractual relationships, any assumption or presumption of authority,...