Many times, urgent or immediate action needs to be taken in court (primarily the Supreme Court) to ensure that your rights to property for example, are not trampled upon by the dissipation of that property by others—property which rightly belongs to you.

It is sometimes too late to wait until proceedings are finalised to realise the fruits of the litigation – e.g. property or the damages – because the people you sue, may take steps to do away with the property.

This means that urgent action in the form of an ‘injunction’ is needed to prevent those kinds of steps being taken by the (potential) defendants.

Injunctive relief action must be brought urgently, and yet much effort is expended in preparing these applications, usually at very short notice and compressed within a period of very few hours.

It is very taxing work and so, our lawyers take the proper steps needed to ensure that the injunction can be properly applied for, and that you have the right to seek and ensure that the property is, for example, preserved, ‘till further order’.

Many times, the injunction has to be brought ‘ex parte’, which means without the other party being present at Court.

This is because the other party may not be available, or may be outside jurisdiction, or perhaps because serving that party with injunction and court documents (which may include affidavits, summons etc.) may not be practical in the short term, or in fact, we may form the view that in the circumstances, there may be a reasonable cause to believe that if the other party becomes aware of the application, they may take urgent and immediate steps to do away with the money or property.

An injunction may involve the prevention of an act by the party in respect of what is seemingly within their right: for example, bringing an application to prevent a party from calling on an unconditional ‘bank guarantee’, which is in their possession.

Other kinds of injunctions can include ‘preservation orders’ in terms of preserving money in a bank account, or property in possession and control of a builder say, who may try to dissipate the property if you commence proceedings against them for damages as to defects.

The downside of injunctions is that you, as the applicant need to be provide an ‘undertaking’ (through your counsel – your barrister or solicitor) to ensure that the other party does not stand to sustain damages unreasonably.

For example, if you bring an injunction to prevent the sale of a home, then you need to ensure that you have a right to that property, because if the sale is prevented and the seller later sustains damages, e.g. through reduced value, increased interest rates etc., then those damages are satisfied by you.

This is why it is so important to ensure that you have a good, ‘bone fide’ or ‘prima facie’ case in relation to the claim which you bring. In the example of the home above, our lawyers ensure that you have a proprietary right to the home before advising you on taking any injunctive steps.

In essence, and in amongst other factors, in order to secure an injunction, you need to have a prima facie case (i.e. on its face, your case shows that you have a legitimate claim) and the ‘balance of convenience’ requires that the Court should intervene.

The convenience aspect means that there is balancing exercise in relation to the harm on you versus the harm on the other side, if the Court does not make the order.

Our lawyers carefully analyse all of these very important and specific matters before providing you with the advice suitable to all the circumstances.

At Papallo Kouchoo we move quickly to ensure that your rights as to property, damages etc. remain intact and that no harm comes to you, in the shortest amount of time possible.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us for an obligation free professional consultation.