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11/09/2012
Businessman Ordered To Pay Millions On Disputed House Boom Sale
The judge in a disputed house purchase case has ordered a bidder to pay up on more than £2m still owed on a six-bedroom Malone Road Property.
The Belfast house went on the market with an asking price of £2.25m in spring 2007 at the height of the property boom, and within two weeks businessman Nicholas McKenna offered to buy it for £3.5m, a record amount for a domestic property.
The sale was never completed and owner Jim McDonald issued proceedings to enforce the contract.
Mr McKenna, head of Ballymena-based catering distribution company the Galgorm Group, claimed he withdrew the offer once he realised the son he had planned to buy the house for was not interested.
But Lord Justice Coghlin rejected his account of the dispute, saying some of his answers in court "bordered on the nonsensical".
Mr McKenna admitted he had no experience of the domestic property market, having invested in commercials property all his life.
He said the £1.35m he gave Mr McDonald was a loan to help ensure the seller did not lose out on a bungalow he was planning to move to.
Mr McDonald and Mr McKenna had known each other for years, both being members of the Knights of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.
Mr McKenna's lawyers indicated that they may appeal the decision.
(NE)
The Belfast house went on the market with an asking price of £2.25m in spring 2007 at the height of the property boom, and within two weeks businessman Nicholas McKenna offered to buy it for £3.5m, a record amount for a domestic property.
The sale was never completed and owner Jim McDonald issued proceedings to enforce the contract.
Mr McKenna, head of Ballymena-based catering distribution company the Galgorm Group, claimed he withdrew the offer once he realised the son he had planned to buy the house for was not interested.
But Lord Justice Coghlin rejected his account of the dispute, saying some of his answers in court "bordered on the nonsensical".
Mr McKenna admitted he had no experience of the domestic property market, having invested in commercials property all his life.
He said the £1.35m he gave Mr McDonald was a loan to help ensure the seller did not lose out on a bungalow he was planning to move to.
Mr McDonald and Mr McKenna had known each other for years, both being members of the Knights of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.
Mr McKenna's lawyers indicated that they may appeal the decision.
(NE)
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