Dublin jewellers to close in row with Danske Bank

A family run jewellers in Dublin city, in business for more than 40 years, shut its doors for the final time Friday following a dispute over a bank loan, the Master of the High Court was told.

Desmond Byrne and his son Kenneth operated Des Byrne Jewellers from Bachelors Walk. The business was established by the family in the early 1970s.

Earlier this year, the property was sold by receivers appointed by Danske Bank after the Byrnes allegedly failed to satisfy a demand to repay some €1 million loaned in 2006 and secured on the Bachelors Walk property.

The bank said the net proceeds of the receivership was €467,491 and it sought liberty from the Master of the High Court to enter final judgment against the Byrnes for the remaining €489,000.

The Byrnes oppose the application, arguing it was unnecessary and wholly improper, and they have a good defence.

The Byrnes say the property was sold by the receivers for €502,000, which they claim was 55 per cent of its true market value.

When the matter came before Master Edmund Honohan, Barry Creed, acting for the Byrnes, said the business was shutting its doors for the final time on Friday because of the dispute with Danske.

In a sworn statement, Des Byrne, of Abhainn Dubh, Northland Drive, Glasnevin, said he was at a loss why the bank brought these proceedings when it was made clear to the bank the Byrnes were willing to sell the property to discharge the debt.

He said “words cannot fully express the levels of stress and anxiety” the matter had caused him and his son Kenneth over the last number of months. He said the jewellers had been operating from the Bachelors Walk property since 1973 and he acquired the property in 1990.

The jewellers was on the ground floor and the upstairs was rented out, he said.

The 2006 loan was sought to assist with restructuring existing borrowings, he said. The bank, through a relationship manager who had dealt with the Byrnes, had offered them an interest only facility which “other banks could not match”.

The initial loan offer included a provision where they would repay only interest for three years and the bank’s relationship manager had assured them that arrangement would be continued, he said.  The facilities were extended in 2011 and 2012 but, in September 2013, he was informed by the bank the person they had been dealing with would no longer be their relationship manager.

They were told their facility was due to expire in December 2013 when they were asked to repay it in full, he said.

At the time, they were maintaining their agreed payments and were not in arrears, Mr Byrne said.

The bank was not entitled to seek judgment given the representations of their relationship manager, he argued.

They had consented to sell the property to repay the debt but, when the bank in May 2014 appointed a receiver over the property, that “truly shocked” and “disappointed” him, Mr Byrne said. He “never intermeddled” with the receivership, the receiver collected rents from the property of an estimated €79,000 annually, he said.

When told last July the property sold for €502,000, that sale price also shocked him as an expert valuers report commissioned by him last June put the premises worth at €900,000.

The Master has listed the matter before a judge of the High Court in January of next year.