Real Estate Disputes

Our experienced Real Estate Disputes team can provide you with specialist advice in relation to commercial property disputes including complex landlord/tenant issues, conveyancing disputes, construction disputes/adjudications, distressed assets and re-structuring arrangements. We have acted for all parties to such disputes including landlords, tenants, vendors, purchasers, financial institutions, asset managers, insolvency office holders, developers and investors.

Our Real Estate Disputes team is supported by dedicated Real Estate, Arbitration and Mediation and Insolvency and Corporate Recovery teams, enabling us to provide clients with a full spectrum of contentious and non-contentious, business-focussed solutions.

Our experience includes:

• Advising a significant commercial tenant on its contractual rights under a tenancy. In particular, its rights on foot of a covenant by the landlord in respect of the tenant’s entitlement to quiet and peaceful enjoyment of the property in circumstances where the ultimate owner of the property sought to develop property adjoining the leased property. This included advice on enforcing the tenant’s rights under the tenancy, including issuing injunctive proceedings and challenging, by way of judicial review, the decision by An Bord Pleanála to grant planning permission for the development to the owner of the property.
• Advising a health care facility in relation to significant structural defects in the building from which the facility operates, in particular fire safety defects. This included assisting with the investigative stage to establish liability for the defects and issuing High Court proceedings on behalf of the client against the architects involved in the construction of the care facility.
• Advising and acting on behalf of an owners' management company in High Court proceedings issued by a unit holder (as receiver and agent) operating a car park within a development, which was considered a multi-unit development under the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011, in which we successfully opposed a challenge by the unit holder of the apportionment of service charges between unit holders within the development.
• Advising a State body in relation to the requirement for the common areas of a multi-unit development to be transferred to an owners' management company pursuant to the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 and assisting in having the common areas in a multi-unit development transferred to the owners' management company in circumstances where the developer was not co-operating. In particular, advising on the client’s options in compelling the developer to transfer the common areas.
• Acting for a landlord of a shopping centre in proceedings issued against the tenant of a unit within the shopping centre seeking the recovery of rent arrears.
• Acting for a client in High Court proceedings seeking an interlocutory injunction against a purported tenant of a commercial property on foot of an invalid lease. We successfully opposed the occupant’s reliance on a business letting agreement and obtained an injunction against the occupant which included an order for the purported lessee and all persons on notice of the injunction to immediately vacate the commercial property. We successfully defended an application brought to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal the injunction by the purported lessee. We also obtained an order for attachment on foot of a failure by the purported lessee to abide by the order of the High Court following which possession of the commercial property was obtained by the client.
• Assisting a commercial landlord in resolving a number of disputes arising from separate tenants who claimed a right to a new tenancy pursuant to Order 51 Rule (2) of the Circuit Court Rules and/or pursuant to the Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Act 1980. Both cases settled out of court to the satisfaction of our client who was able to secure timely possession of each of the premises previously subject to a tenancy between the parties.
• Acting on behalf of mortgagees and receivers appointed by them in a number of High Court interlocutory injunction proceedings relating to investment properties, seeking to prevent interference by defaulting borrowers with the receivership and to obtain vacant possession of the investment properties in order for the security to be realised. The injunction applications include seeking orders requiring all persons occupying the properties to vacate on the basis that any purported lease is not valid as against the mortgagee and any occupant is thereby a trespasser.
• Acting for the owner of a high-value period property in High Court proceedings for compensation for damage caused to a client’s property by refurbishments carried out by the adjoining owner. The matter settled at mediation just before the High Court hearing following extensive expert witness consultations.
• Advising a significant commercial landlord of a multi-unit building in relation to proceedings issued by a tenant, claiming nuisance and the interference of its business use and peaceful and quiet enjoyment of the premises, arising from the use of another occupying tenant of a unit in the building. This included advising the landlord of its contractual rights pursuant to the lease documentation and successfully resolving the matter with the tenant through negotiations.
• Acting for NAMA, and then NAMA’s appointed statutory receiver, over a large site (comprising 17 different plots of land with title complexities on the majority of plots) located in a regional city centre to enable the current redevelopment of that city. This instruction included acting for the statutory receiver in successful Commercial Court injunction proceedings against occupants of part of the site.
• Acting for receivers over a broad range of asset classes including appointments over hotels, trading companies, incomplete housing developments, farms, commercial premises and shopping centres, as well as acting in a wide range of litigation (including injunction proceedings) before the Superior Courts arising from such appointments.