Eviction case couple challenge registrar

A COUPLE facing eviction from their Dublin home within days over mortgage repayment arrears are seeking leave from the High Court to challenge a county registrar’s order for repossession of the property in favour of the Educational Building Society (EBS).

The couple, who are represented by the “New Beginning” group of lawyers and businessmen, recently formed to support homeowners with mortgage difficulties, are also seeking declarations that provisions of the Courts and Officers Act 1995 and the Circuit Courts Rules, which assign powers to county registrars to grant orders for possession, are unconstitutional.

Peter Byas, an unemployed business consultant and former publican, said he, his wife and three children have nowhere to live when the six-month stay on the repossession order expires on Saturday.

Mr Justice Michael Peart will rule today on the application by Ross Maguire, for Mr Byas and his wife Anne, for leave to bring judicial review proceedings aimed at quashing the repossession order, made in May.

The couple also want a stay on the order pending the outcome of their case if they get leave.

The couple bought their home at Navan Road, Dublin, for €670,000 and put an additional €150,000 into renovating it. They took out a €470,000 loan with EBS to purchase the house in 2005. Mr Byas said he took out a further loan of €150,000 in 2006 and of €30,000 (to top up a pension) in 2007. All the loans were secured on the property.

Mr Byas said he believed at the time he would be able to redeem shares with an estimated value of £300,000 in Belgrave Trading Limited, a London-based private equity firm, which employed him as a business consultant. He had started out as a barman and previously owned three pubs, including Daly’s of Stoneybatter, Dublin, all of which he had sold in the 1990s before working in London.