{"id":134820,"date":"2025-10-20T22:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134820\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T22:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:24:08","slug":"fund-gets-orders-stopping-e695000-house-sale-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134820\/","title":{"rendered":"Fund gets orders stopping \u20ac695,000 house sale \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fund has obtained interim orders against two men restraining the \u20ac695,000 sale of a house<\/a> in Clifden, Co Galway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) secured the orders at the High Court on Monday after its counsel said the matter was urgent because the property was described last week as sale agreed and contracts may exchange \u201cimminently\u201d. <\/p>\n

In an affidavit, solicitor Ciar\u00e1n Leavy of Lavelle Partners, for Pepper, said it had a \u201clegitimate basis\u201d for concern that Kenneth McDonagh, of Charleston Road, Ranelagh, Dublin, was improperly registered as full owner of the property without Pepper\u2019s security interest having been recorded. <\/p>\n

If Peter O\u2019Toole, with an address at Leguan, Moycullen, Co Galway, transferred the property to Mr McDonagh without noting or registering Pepper\u2019s mortgage on the folio, this constitutes a fraud on Pepper, Mr Leavy said. <\/p>\n

The October 2024 transfer deed does not state Mr O\u2019Toole transferred the property from himself to Mr McDonagh but that the property was transferred from Fr Nicholas Dempsey to Mr McDonagh, he said. <\/p>\n

It is necessary to investigate the authenticity of the deed of transfer, he said. Such a transfer, without reference to Pepper\u2019s security interest, constitutes a fraud on Pepper and\/or a mistake on the property folio, he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Justice Brian Cregan told barrister Ruadh\u00e1n \u00d3 Chiar\u00e1in, for Pepper, this was \u201cquite an imbroglio\u201d. He granted interim orders ex parte (only the moving side was represented in court) against Mr McDonagh and Mr O\u2019Toole restraining any sale or dealings with the property at Heather Hill, Sky Road, Clifden. If it has been sold, the orders require information about the purchaser\u2019s identity. The case will return to court on October 28th. <\/p>\n

Pepper claims the property was first registered on November 21st 1996 in the name of Jack Connolly, a businessman, of Belleek, Clifden (since deceased) and Fr Nicholas Dempsey, a Catholic priest, formerly with an address at Belleek, Clifden.<\/p>\n

On October 11th 2006, IIB Homeloans offered a \u20ac700,000 mortgage loan to Mr O\u2019Toole to buy the property from Mr Connolly and Fr Dempsey, Pepper claims. That loan was never repaid, it alleges. <\/p>\n

Pepper claims Mr O\u2019Toole\u2019s solicitor in 2006, Liam \u00d3 Gallchobhair, of Abbeygate Street, Galway, undertook to hold documents on trust for IIB, permitting the loan to be drawn down. It claims neither Mr O\u2019Toole nor the mortgage were registered, and Mr Connolly and Fr Dempsey remained listed as the owners. <\/p>\n

Media reports stated Peter O\u2019Toole came before Galway District Court on January 29th 2024 charged with offences of creating a false instrument, an AIB cheque for \u20ac1,425,000, and using it between January 4th and 7th 2019, Mr Leavy said. He referred to another newspaper report of proceedings over the validity of a will of the late Margaret Hernon, which settled in 2023 on terms such that Mr O\u2019Toole came into substantial sums from her estate. <\/p>\n

It had also been reported that Mr O\u2019Toole is \u201ca target\u201d of the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) and is being pursued by other litigants, the court was told. <\/p>\n

Pepper claims Mr McDonagh was registered on October 15th 2024 as the full owner of the Clifden property without Mr O\u2019Toole\u2019s ownership or IIB\u2019s mortgage being registered on the folio. <\/p>\n

The property transfer appeared \u201cunusual\u201d in circumstances where Jack Connolly and Fr Nicholas Dempsey had already sold the property to Mr O\u2019Toole around October 2006, Pepper claims. Fr Dempsey is retired as Pastor Emeritus of the congregation of St Therese of Carmel Church in San Diego, California, Mr Leavy said. <\/p>\n

Kenneth McDonagh was found by the High Court in 2020 to be liable, with his brothers Brian and Maurice, for \u20ac22.9 million to Ulster Bank, the court was told.<\/p>\n

After Pepper lodged a caution on the property folio, Bajwa Solicitors, for Mr McDonagh, wrote stating Mr O\u2019Toole was adjudicated bankrupt in the UK in 2012 and any claim against him is statute-barred. It was claimed that McDonagh is a bona fide purchaser for value because he \u201cadvanced funds\u201d to Mr O\u2019Toole, including \u20ac500,000 paid last year \u201cpaid directly to the Cab in the past year\u201d. Mr McDonagh, it was stated, reached a final settlement with Ulster Bank in 2024 and the Clifden property has been sold.<\/p>\n

The claim about payment of \u20ac500,000 \u201cdirectly contradicted\u201d a deed of transfer of October 2024 that purported Mr McDonagh had transferred \u20ac960,000 to Fr Dempsey in consideration of the Clifden property and a neighbouring folio, Pepper claims. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fund has obtained interim orders against two men restraining the \u20ac695,000 sale of a house in Clifden,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,1878,10476,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-134820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-galway","11":"tag-high-court","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}