The credit crunch couldn't have come at a worse time for Irish Nationwide managing director Michael Fingleton.

He had lobbied extensively for years for new legislation so the building society could demutualise and woo a trade buyer.

But, by the time the flirting started getting serious in the autumn, financial stocks had fallen dramatically and British commercial property, a sector in which the society had lent heavily, was suffering badly.

The board of the building society had hoped for a trade sale before the end of this year. As the credit crisis continues, a sale next year is looking even less likely given the market turmoil.

If Fingleton sells now or in the coming months, it's likely to be far off his desired €1.5 billion price. The society's 100,000 members could be waiting a bit longer for their windfall.

The timing has not been helped by the rogue solicitors' scandal that has affected most Irish lenders. Two Dublin-based solicitors - Michael Lynn and Thomas Byrne - used a legal mechanism, common in all residential property transactions, to double up on mortgages by drawing borrowings from several financial institutions on the same properties.

Lynn owes at least €82 million, not including deposits paid by purchasers of overseas properties he was developing, while Byrne owes more than €47 million. The two are being investigated by the Law Society and the Garda, while a large group of financial institutions are pursuing them through the court in an attempt to recover their loans.

Irish Nationwide's home loans manager Brian Fitzgibbon was the scandal's first casualty on the side of the financial institutions. He was suspended partly because of loans of €20 million provided by the building society to Lynn and Byrne. However, he later claimed his suspension was an attempt to scapegoat him over the loans. It emerged in court that there were other issues in the long-running disagreement between the manager and his employer.

The building society must have felt even further embarrassment when the manager claimed in court that Fingleton had personally approved one loan to each of the solicitors, was responsible for bypassing the building society's own procedures, and that the society's credit committee was merely a device to satisfy the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority.

Irish Nationwide wasn't the only building society to have its problems in 2007. EBS had its dirty laundry washed in public when it had a very open boardroom row with its non-executive director, Ethna Tinney. She unsuccessfully sought re-election without the backing of her fellow directors.

Internal EBS board minutes, made public during the row, showed serious divisions at board level and a breakdown of trust between certain directors in 2006.

After a lengthy recruitment process, EBS finally found a new chief executive earlier this month. Fergus Murphy became chief executive of ACC Bank in April but left in early November to join Shelbourne Developments, the property firm owned by his friend Garrett Kelleher, while he was still in talks with EBS about taking its top job. He subsequently decided to leave Shelbourne for EBS on personal grounds, given the extensive travel involved.

In the coming years, EBS is likely to be fighting off further unwelcome takeover approaches, such as the 2006 overture it received from AIB which emerged earlier this year. The challenge facing Irish Nationwide is likely to be more complicated as it must decide if it should postpone a sale until the credit markets return to normal. That could be some time away.