The High Court has decided that a receiver should pay €194,331 in rent arrears concerning a mews at the rear of a house on Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, where the ffrench-O’Carroll family lived.
Renée ffrench-O’Carroll, the wife of the late former TD Michael ffrench-O’Carroll, was for many years the only owner/occupier of a property on the square, which is now largely a business district of the city.
A mews at the rear of the home was leased by Ms ffrench-O’Carroll to her son Arthur, who turned the ground floor into a restaurant and apartments above. The restaurant operated successfully for a number of years from 1989.
But by 2016, the year after Ms ffrench-O’Carroll died, the restaurant and apartments lease was taken over by a receiver who was appointed over Arthur ffrench-O’Carroll’s assets.
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The executors of the estate were her two other sons, Donal and Paul. In 2020, Donal ffrench-O’Carroll called on the receiver to agree to a revised rent on the mews property.
Agreement could not be reached, and in 2021 an independent valuer determined increased rents for periods since 2013 and 2018.
The matter came before Mr Justice Oisín Quinn. He was asked to determine the proper construction of a rent-review clause in the lease and from what date arrears should be paid.
Last month, the judge ruled the receiver should make a payment to the ffrench-O’Carroll estate that included the arrears due from March 2014 and from July 2018, based on determinations by the independent valuer.
He adjourned the case so the precise arrears could be calculated.
On Tuesday, he was told the sum was €194,331. He made formal orders for a payment in that amount to be made to the estate.
Ms ffrench-O’Carroll was the daughter of French diplomat Xavier de Laforcade, the 1940s equivalent to the French ambassador to Ireland.
He gave her the four-storey over-basement Fitzwilliam Square property as a wedding present for her 1944 marriage to Irish doctor Michael ffrench-O’Carroll. She died in December 2015.
Michael ffrench-O’Carroll was one of the founders of the Clann na Poblachta political party in 1947. He was elected independent TD for southwest Dublin in 1951. He died in 2007.
