Ground Rents - Constitutional Challenge?

Does anyone know about any proposed changes to Ground Rents?

Thanks.

Why, have you heard something in the offing?

There's a bill currently going through dail process which is supposed to help alleviate some current conveyancing problems like problematic applications for vesting certs where leases have expired or where some of the title is possessory and the likes. However last time I enquired about it I was told it was still in progress which could mean anything in terms of time to be enacted.

This post piqued my interest:

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?p=591631

sweetpea said:

The current ground rents legislation are under constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court so you are unlikely to get a definitive answer from Counsel until that issue has been decided.

Click to expand...

There seems to be efforts towards abolishing them mentioned in other places. For example here:
http://www.irlgov.ie/oireachtas/Committees-29th-D%C3%A1il/jcc-debates/jc160703.rtf

Thanks for the info, Vanilla.

I wonder is this the challenge Sweetpea referred to?:

“… the High Court has recently dealt with a constitutional challenge to the existing legislative provisions on ground rents (Shirley v A. O'Gorman & Co Ltd [2006] IEHC 27, High Court, 31 January 2006) and that the unsuccessful plaintiff in that case has appealed to the Supreme Court which, at the time of writing (November 2007), has yet to hear that appeal.”
([broken link removed])

Wikipedia says:
“Case names are usually given with the plaintiff first, as in Plaintiff v. Defendant.”
So in this case I suppose “Shirley” was unsuccessful and has appealed.


Further googles reveal:

“Shirley v. O'Gorman & Company Limited, Ireland and The Attorney General (High Court, 31 January 2006, Peart J.). The High Court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the statutory scheme for the enlargement of tenants' interests to acquire the fee simple interest in business premises offended against Article 40.3 and Article 43 of the Constitution.”
(http://www.attorneygeneral.ie/pub/Annual_Report_2006.doc)


So this case seems to refer to business premises. I wonder will the outcome affect residential property situations?