Bank’s claim for judgment referred to plenary hearing on statute of limitations point

Plaintiff seeks summary judgment for balance that remains outstanding on a loan following the sale by the plaintiff financial institution of the property that was mortgaged by way of security for that loan - the defendants seek that the matter go to plenary hearing - in 2007 the plaintiff agreed to advance €1.65m to the defendants for the purchase of a residential property - the defendants therefore entered into an 'all sums due' mortgage with the plaintiff - in or about August 2008, the defendants defaulted on their loan repayments - in October 2009 the plaintiff demanded repayment of all that was owing to it - in March 2010 the Circuit Court granted the plaintiff possession of the property - in May 2012 the property was sold for the sum of €305k - in May 2015 the plaintiff issued a summary summons in respect of the balance of the amount owing under the loan agreement - defendants contend that the loan agreement makes no reference to the totality of the sum owing becoming payable upon default - this is not so - defendants contracted to clause regarding plaintiff or other lender enforcing terms of offer - the fact that the plaintiff was satisfied to take a mortgage over the property as security for its debt does not relieve the defendants of liability for the balance of the debt outstanding when the proceeds of sale of that property prove insufficient to discharge the entirety of the debt outstanding - plaintiff is not estopped from seeking to recover the difference between the sale price obtained and the balance of debt outstanding - defendants contend that the proceedings are out of time and that plaintiff had six years to commence proceedings - this issue could have been dealt with by the plaintiff in affidavit evidence - plaintiff contends that there continues to be a repeat default each time a payment goes unpaid and that this means that the present application was brought within time - hurdle that defendants must cross to succeed having matters sent to plenary hearing is low - leave to defend should be granted unless it is clear that the defendant has no case.