Lynn client ordered to repay €1.2m to Permanent TSB

A MAN who was a client of missing solicitor Michael Lynn has been ordered by a High Court judge to repay a sum of €1.2 million relating to loans issued to buy properties on which Mr Lynn allegedly gave multiple undertakings.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly made the judgment order yesterday in favour of Permanent TSB against John Mulkearns, an Aer Corps officer, Iona Road, Glasnevin, Dublin, after being told the bank had received a letter on behalf of Mr Mulkearns indicating no objection to judgment being entered.

The order brings to €4.8 million the total which Mr Mulkearns and his wife Lornagh have been ordered to repay to various banks over loans issued to them to buy properties on which Mr Lynn allegedly gave multiple undertakings.

Last March, the couple were ordered by Mr Justice Kelly to repay €1.6 million lent to them by IIB Homeloans Ltd to buy six properties on which Mr Lynn was claimed to have given multiple undertakings.

In January, Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank secured judgment for more than €2 million against them in relation to other loans secured on the same properties.

Permanent TSB had sought orders against Mr Mulkearns requiring repayment of a loan of €1.2 million. In separate but related proceedings, it secured judgment last month for €260,000 against Mr and Mrs Mulkearns.

The bank claimed it advanced €1.2 million to Mr Mulkearns to invest in properties on his undertaking to provide security in the form of the house at Iona Road, Glasnevin, Dublin. It claimed Mr Mulkearns failed to put in place the required security over the property and failed to disclose that he was not the sole owner of the property but that it was in the name of himself and his wife.

Last month, the judge was told that a mortgage on a house on Iona Road, which is in arrears, was involved.

The bank brought a number of proceedings. One set was against Mr Mulkearns himself, a second set was jointly against Mr and Mrs Mulkearns and a third was against the couple, Fiona McAleenan, a solicitor in Mr Lynn's firm with an address in Bettystown, Co Meath, and Mr Lynn himself.

In the proceedings against the couple, the judge ordered them to repay to the bank a sum of €260,000, plus interest, lent in September 2005 and secured on a property at Hillcrest Park, Lucan, Co Dublin. The bank claimed the security was not put in place as agreed and the couple had offered the same property as part-security to three other credit institutions.

Mr Lynn had acted as the couple's solicitor in relation to that transaction and a situation developed where the Hillcrest Park property was the subject of multiple loans, all secured on solicitor's undertakings, it claimed.

In its claim against Ms McAleenan, the bank claims that, acting in her capacity as Mr Mulkearns's solicitor, she had failed to honour undertakings that she would not negotiate the loan cheque unless Mr Mulkearns had good marketable title to the property and had executed a charge over it in favour of the bank. It claims Mr Lynn is vicariously liable for the alleged acts and omissions of Ms McAleenan.