A WOMAN is seeking court orders compelling Allied Irish Banks (AIB) to release its claims over 26 Dublin properties with an alleged total value of €15.2 million.
Patricia Cullen, Butterfield Avenue, Rathfarnham, Dublin, claims she is entitled to have the properties transferred to her under a settlement of family law proceedings with her husband, property developer Bryan Cullen.
The action by Ms Cullen against AIB was transferred to the Commercial Court yesterday by Mr Justice Peter Kelly.
Ms Cullen claims, under a January 2008 settlement of family law proceedings, that Mr Cullen, also Butterfield Avenue, Rathfarnham, was ordered to transfer to her by April 2008 the entire legal and beneficial interest in 34 properties, free of all charges.
She claims AIB had security interests in 26 of those but had agreed to release its security.
Ms Cullen claims she agreed the settlement with Mr Cullen relying on representations that AIB, as banker to Mr Cullen, would release any securities held by it.
Despite the restructuring of Mr Cullen’s borrowings with AIB, the bank was refusing to release its interest in the secured properties, she claims.
A letter of loan sanction of May 2008 from AIB to Mr Cullen provided for security to be provided by way of legal charge over 51 residential properties, Ms Cullen claims. She claims Mr Cullen had signed letters that concluded, unconditionally, the agreement for the release of the secured properties to her.
Solicitors for AIB had given her possession of the properties and their title deeds, Ms Cullen claims.
The bank had also facilitated the transfer of rental incomes from the Cullens’ joint bank account to her account.
On July 29th, 2008, Ms Cullen claims a lending manager with AIB had expressly told her agents the bank would release its security interests over the properties and thereby confirmed it had no claim over those properties.
Ms Cullen claims that despite its agreements, the bank had, on October 15th, 2008, purported to register mortgages or charges in the Land Registry against the secured properties.
Because the court order relating to settlement of the family law proceedings was previously registered in the Land Registry, she claims the AIB registration is void, but the bank had refused to release the charges and mortgages.
Ms Cullen is seeking performance of the bank’s alleged agreement to release the secured properties and a declaration that she holds the properties free from all interests of the bank. She is also seeking damages for negligence and breach of contact.
