Aodhan O Faolain.
The operator of Lynams Hotel in Dublin city centre has secured a temporary High Court injunction allowing her to retain possession of the premises.
Theresa Andreucetti has run the hotel at 63/64 Upper O'Connell Street since 2008 and employs 21 people.
She went to court on Friday after agents for a receiver entered the hotel last Tuesday, telling staff he was taking possession because Ms Andreucetti had failed to pay some €528,000 in arrears of rent.
Mr Justice Paul Gilligan heard the agents were put in place by Aiden Murphy, appointed receiver over assets of the landlords of the premises, on Tuesday afternoon when Ms Andreucetti was not in the hotel.
The court heard the hotelier denies rent arrears are owed and contends the receiver was not entitled to possession.
She has counterclaimed for hundreds of thousands of euro allegedly due to her from having to carry out repairs to the building’s roof. The cost of those works, plus damages arising from bedrooms in the hotel being unusable due to water damage from the leaking roof, should be borne by the landlords, she claims.
Martin Canny BL, for Ms Andreucetti, secured a temporary injunction requiring the receiver and his agents to hand back possession of the hotel to the hotelier.
Reputation
The injunction was granted on an ex-parte basis (one side only represented) by Mr Justice Paul Gilligan who returned the matter to next Wednesday.
Mr Canny said his client wanted the injunction because she feared for the hotel business and its employees’ futures as well as for other businesses in which she was involved. Her reputation was also at grave risk, counsel said.
Since the hotel was repossessed, agents put in place to act as hotel managers were “cancelling bookings one by one” and had also told guests Ms Andreucetti owed money, counsel said.
Only those residents who were in the hotel as part of Dublin City Council’s emergency accommodation scheme were being allowed to stay, counsel said. Some of those residents were traumatised as they feared they would be evicted.
While the 21 staff remained eployed, Ms Adreucetti was responsible for paying their wages and she may be unable to do so in the current situation continued, counsel said.
His client has operated the hotel under a lease with the landlords that runs to 2023 and pays €240,000 annual rent, he said. She was paying rent and the disputed arrears were “historic”, he said.
When the counter-claim for repairs to the roof was set off against the alleged arrears, Ms Andreucetti was actually owed some €6,000 by the landlord, he added.
While there was correspondence about the disputed rent, the receiver took possession without any prior notice, he said.