Downsizing ...to a house on 230 acres
Court appeal over cancelled purchase agreement lost
Abandoned for over a decade
THE owner of a 5,200-acre country estate, who wanted to ‘downsize’ to an abandoned manor house on 230 acres, has lost an appeal over a cancelled purchase deal.
Anthony Sheedy has already lost a High Court case, in which he attempted to force the completion of a €1.375million purchase deal on the abandoned manor.
The businessman, who owns the Slievenamon Estate, near Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, wanted to buy Whitfield
Manor in Kilmeadan, Co. Waterford, and the adjoining lands.
Mr Sheedy, who has businesses in the US in mining and waste-toenergy, asked the courts to enforce the contract for sale. He challenged the factual and legal basis for the contract being cancelled.
He had told the High Court that he was planning to downsize, and that Whitfield Manor would be the last home for him and his wife Margaret to settle in.
Whitfield is an early 19th-century Italianate-style country house with a ballroom, and is a listed building.
It is described as a building of national importance by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, and was formerly used for an international polo school. But it has been abandoned for over a decade.
Developer Alastair Jackson had bought it for more than €4million, intending to turn it into a hotel and golf resort, but planning delays scuppered the project. It was put up for sale in 2014, with an estimated restoration cost of just over €2million.
Court of Appeal Judge Brian Murray noted that in August 2015, Mr Sheedzy entered into a contract to buy the property from Mr Jackson.
Mr Jackson was acted for by his receiver Peter Stapleton, as his assets had been taken over after his loans were acquired by Nama.
The closing date provided for in the contract was to be 30 days later. But Mr Sheedy said there were a number of issues he needed to resolve, before finalising the contract.
The receiver maintained he had tried to resolve the issues but that Mr Sheedy had still not finalised the deal.
Almost exactly two years after the closing date, the receiver served a notice that he was going to cancel the contract, which he did in September 2017, returning the deposit.