Companies owned by controversial landlord Marc Godart recently added a Leitrim cottage, a site in Wexford and a house in Kilmainham, Dublin to their property portfolios.
The main property-owning company in the group owned by controversial landlord Marc Godart reduced its debts by more than €1.8 million in 2022, according to recent filings.
Green Label Property Investments Ltd, incorporated in 2014, is one of several Irish companies Mr Godart, from Luxembourg, owns by way of Luxembourg company Hester SA.
The accounts for calendar year 2022 show Green Label had property worth €2.7 million at year’s end, the same figure given in the previous year’s accounts. The company had no employees in 2022 and recorded a loss of €346,846, compared with a loss of €433,030 the previous year.
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However, the accounts show that during the year money owed to group undertakings fell to €1.5 million from €2 million, while “other creditors” fell to zero, from €1.3 million at the end of the previous year. The company has not registered any mortgages since it was incorporated and nor have any of Mr Godart’s other Irish companies.
Mr Godart bought residential and commercial property in Ireland in and around 2014, when prices were low. He is involved in the short-term letting of his own and other people’s property and has been the subject of several negative findings by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) in relation to the treatment of tenants, some of whom are pursuing his companies through the courts for the nonpayment of their RTB awards.
In June, the District Court granted four of Mr Godart’s companies – Green Label Property Investments, Merrion Road Real Estate Holdings, Inchicore Parkview Residences, and Cashel Letting – an extension to July 16th for the filing of their annual returns for 2021 and 2022. All the companies have since made filings, apart from Merrion Road Real Estate.
[ Marc Godart made personally liable for 80 per cent of ex-tenant’s legal costsOpens in new window ]
The recently filed accounts for Inchicore Parkview show it had assets of €235,957 at the end of 2022, up from €283 at the end of the previous year. It had no employees. Filings with Tailte Éireann show the company registered as the owner of a property at Halls, Gorvagh, Co Leitrim, since February of this year. The three-bedroom cottage was sold in an online auction in 2022 for €67,000, according to the BidX1.com website. Tailte Éireann records also show the company owns a site at Mangan, Hollyfort, Gorey, Co Wexford.
The 2022 accounts for Cashel Letting record investment property worth €267,552 at year’s end, the same value given in the 2021 accounts. It had no employees and owed more than €300,000 to unidentified group companies and connected parties, the accounts say. Tailte Éireann records show the company was registered as the owner of 22 Woodfield Avenue, Kilmainham, Dublin 10, in November last.
In an affidavit to the High Court earlier this year Mr Godart said his business had a corporate structure based on Luxembourg law whereby revenue raised in Ireland “has to be transferred” back to Luxembourg.
The case involved a Godart company called Green Label Short Lets which Mr Godart said had no funds to pay an RTB award to a former tenant who had been illegally evicted.
The case was settled with a payment to the former tenant and 80 per cent of the legal costs being awarded against Mr Godart personally. Mr Justice Brian Cregan said the businessman had “acted in bad faith and with impropriety from start to finish in the conduct of these proceedings”. A request for a comment from Mr Godart met with no response.
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