A HIGH Court action for repossession of the luxury home of former Smart Telecom chief executive Oisin Fanning was adjourned indefinitely on consent yesterday after a judge was told the case was unlikely to trouble the court again.

Last January Mr Fanning failed to stop Anglo Irish Bank from getting a repossession order on Forenaghts House, which stands on 24 acres at Forenaghts in Naas, Co Kildare, over his alleged failure to keep up payments on an €8 million loan.

Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne allowed a three-month delay on enforcement of the possession order to allow Mr Fanning make a €400,000 interest repayment on the loan by the end of April. If he made the payment, the judge said, she would consider extending the stay to allow Mr Fanning look at ways of meeting his debt.

Yesterday Margaret Heneghan, for the bank, told the judge the “matter is spent” and the only order required was for the case to be adjourned generally, with liberty to re-enter if required. There was consent between the parties to that order and the matter “should not trouble the court again”, counsel said. Ms Justice Dunne said she would grant the order, with liberty to apply to the court by either party.

Last January, Ms Justice Dunne ruled that, although Anglo Irish gave the loan to Mr Fanning to allow him buy €5 million worth of shares in Smart Telecom and to refinance a €2.9 million loan on Forenaghts, the loan had been secured on his home.

She rejected Mr Fanning’s claim the loan was given on the basis of assurances from businessman Brendan Murtagh, who took over Smart in 2006, that the company would repay it.

The bank was entitled to an order for possession because this was a commercial loan which had to be repaid over 12 months and it was clearly intended that it would be funded by the €5 million investment in Smart which did not work out, the judge said.