A financial fund is entitled to judgment for €4.85 million against businessman Tom Doran over loans advanced to buy lands in Co Westmeath almost 20 years ago, a High Court judge has ruled.
Mr Justice Alexander Owens said Mayo-born Mr Doran, aged in his sixties, is “a canny businessman” who, when the loans were advanced, was a successful developer in London and also held shares in racehorses. He is now a landlord in London, the judge said.
Mr Doran, the judge believed, had “revisited his memory” of what happened when the loans were advanced by Allied Irish Banks to buy two blocks of farmland at Irishtown, Mullingar in 2006 and 2007.
The land, near St Finian’s College, was perceived at the time to have development potential but was not zoned for residential development in the Co Westmeath 2002 development plan, he said. The land was part of a farm which adjoined land zoned for residential development.
RM Block
Mr Doran borrowed €926,500 on foot of the 2006 loan and €2.6 million under the terms of the 2007 loan. He had agreed in late 2005 to buy the first block of land, about 22 acres, for €850,000 and in April 2007 agreed to buy the second block of 30 acres for €3 million.
After default on repayments, AIB and, at a later stage, Everyday, which purchased the loans and related charges from AIB in 2018, pursued recovery of the debt but Mr Doran maintained he was not liable.
Among various claims, Mr Doran claimed an AIB official had agreed to get valuations to establish for him the land purchase represented value for money, he was deceived by her into thinking she got those valuations and he acted on that by committing to buy the lands.
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He claimed that, before he drew the loans, documents purporting to be valuations were placed on the bank’s file which were not genuine. AIB was negligent and in breach of contract by not getting reliable valuations before it advanced the loans, he claimed.
In dismissing Mr Doran’s claims in a judgment published this week, Mr Justice Owens said Mr Doran’s evidence to the court “was a mixture of what he was thinking, doing, saying and being told back in 2005, 2006, and 2007, and wishful thinking”.
Everyday, he ruled, was entitled to judgment for just over €4.85 million in principal and interest on foot of the loans.
He rejected various arguments by Mr Doran, including that an AIB official, Sharon Scanlon, had promised she would get valuations which would assist him in deciding whether to buy either of the two tranches of land at the vendors’ asking price.
Ms Scanlon is a daughter of Mr Doran’s “erstwhile” friend and business associate, Tom Scanlon, the judge noted. Ms Scanlon, a businessman and builder from Co Meath, owned a house and racehorses with Mr Doran and Mr Scanlon had introduced Mr Doran to the prospect of buying the lands at Irishtown.
Mr Doran, the judge concluded, was not interested in getting valuations when the bought the lands and did not rely on any representations relating to either their existence of content.
Mr Doran was not deceived into taking any step which he would not otherwise have taken, he held.
Neither the terms of the facility letters governing the loans, nor the circumstances of the relationship between AIB and Mr Doran, imposed any contractual or other obligation on AIB to provide him with assurance that what he paid for the land represented value for money, the judge held.
A settlement previously reached in the dispute later broke down, leading to the matter going to hearing.
