Costly: The barn which Dan Gildea claimed – but Mrs Kelly was left by her uncle. She now owns the property
TWO brothers and their mother who tried to sue a woman for her land in Co Donegal are facing a massive €100,000 legal bill.
That was the estimated costs to the Gildea family after six days of hearings at Letterkenny Circuit Civil Court.
Nora Kelly, from Correnagh, 2kms from Lurgybrack outside Letterkenny, won her landmark legal case yesterday.
She had been left 20 acres of land by her late uncle William John Kennedy when he died in 2007.
Brother Christopher Gildea’s bid to get his hands on the land failed. His mother Nora Gildea’s bid for seven acres of the land failed. And Dan Gildea’s attempt to secure the rights to this barn pictured also failed.
With Mrs Gildea and her sons forced to pay their own legal costs – plus Dan and Chris having to pay half of their sister Nora Kelly’s costs, it’s understood the eventual total cost to the Gildea family will run close to €100,000.
There were three barristers and three solicitor’s firms involved in representing the various parties.
Peter Nolan, barrister for Mrs Kelly, had attempted to get the Gildeas to pay all the legal costs associated with the case.
But Marshall McCloughan, solicitor for Mrs Nora Gildea, successfully argued that each side should pay their own costs in the dispute between mother and daughter.
However judge Mary Faherty ordered that Christopher and Dan Gildea should pay half of their sister Nora Kelly’s costs.
She had ruled that Christopher’s claims to the lands ‘bordered on audacious’.
In his evidence Dan Gildea, who is unemployed, had claimed to be running a car breaker’s business from the shed.
However Judge Faherty said she could find no independent evidence of this; and referred to evidence presented by Mr Nolan which showed that several cars which Dan Gildea claimed had been on the property for many years had only been bought after the death of Mr Kennedy.