Mother, son urged to sort property row

A High Court judge has urged an elderly mother and her youngest son to resolve between them their legal dispute over the demolition, allegedly without the mother's consent, of a mews at the rear of her home in Dublin's Fitwilliam Square and the development of a restaurant on the site.

Ms Renee ffrench O'Carroll, a mother of five, has claimed her youngest son Arthur had exerted undue influence on her in getting her to sign a lease for development of the mews premises and that she was shocked and annoyed to later see the mews demolished without her consent. The Diep Le Shaker restaurant now operates from a building constructed on the Pembroke Lane site.

Mr ffrench O'Carroll has denied his mother's claims and brought an appeal to the High Court against the Circuit Court decision last year which found the signing by Ms ffrench O'Carroll in 1989 of the disputed lease was procured by undue influence and that it was null and void.

The appeal opened on Monday and was due to resume yesterday but lawyers for the sides spent the day engaged in settlement talks. The case was adjourned to today.

Mr Justice Thomas Smyth had yesterday urged the sides to try and resolve their differences. If the hearing continued, his decision would be based on the evidence before the court.

Ms ffrench O'Carroll came to Ireland in 1940 with her French parents during the second World War and lived at the French embassy at Ailesbury Road for a time. She was given 55 Fitzwilliam Square on her marriage to Michael ffrench O'Carroll in 1944.

The couple had five children - Donal, Paul, Susanne, Marie Claire and Arthur - and separated in 1969. Ms ffrench O'Carroll said it was a French custom that a gift be given to children and it had always been her intention to divide her property equally between her children.

She claimed Arthur had regarded the mews as his inheritance although she had told him otherwise. Her son's actions had affected the inheritance of her other children, she added.

She claimed her son exerted undue pressure on her to sign a 99-year lease in 1989 on development of the mews, which then consisted of two garages and living quarters above the bigger garage, as a restaurant. The premises was developed as a restaurant/gallery known as The Lane Gallery.

In 1995, that restaurant was running into financial difficulties and her son asked her to sign a lease regarding it. She had signed it under time pressure and it was not explained to her that there was a clause for possible assignment of the lease interest, she claimed. When she had refused in 1998 to agree to assignment of the lease, Arthur had become annoyed, she said.

Without her consent, she claimed, the mews property was later demolished and a new and larger building built on the site which building now includes the Diep Le Shaker restaurant.

She had learned Arthur had become a partner with Matthew Farrell, in Killardport Ltd, which is beneficially owned by firms in Gibraltar, and that company was operating the Diep Le Shaker restaurant on the site of what had been her mews property.

Arthur ffrench-O'Carroll, of Wellington Place, Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin, has denied the claims. In an affidavit, he said his mother's account of the circumstances of execution of the lease was incorrect and a solicitor had fully explained to her the meaning and effect of the agreement.