Businessman ordered to pay cost of repossession

A BUSINESSMAN who remortgaged the family home to pay off debts has been ordered by a judge to pay all the legal costs of the repossession.

The man took out a €513,000 loan with subprime mortgage providers Start Mortgages on the family home in Blessington, Co Wicklow, February 2007 to pay off existing debts, the Revenue Commissioners along with the €300,000 still existing on the original mortgage with EBS.

Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne in the High Court said she was making an unusual order for costs against the man because he had “landed” his wife in trouble.

She was told yesterday that his wife had co-signed the loan documents on the understanding that raising the money would help her husband’s business stay solvent as he was solely in charge of the family finances.

In 2008 the man left his wife and three children and moved out of the family home. It was only in September 2008 that his wife became aware of the indebtedness her husband was now in.

Since then the arrears have increased to almost €90,000 and the total amount still outstanding was €589,127.03. A total of 28 months’ payments remain outstanding.

The monthly repayments stood at €3,193, but the woman involved could only pay off €300 a month.

An order for repossession was granted yesterday by Ms Justice Dunne in the High Court who said she had little choice although the man’s wife and three children lived there.

Counsel for the woman Ross Maguire said the woman had three children living with her from a two-year-old to a teenager, which was “misfortunate to say the least”, but she was not entering a defence to the order for repossession.

He said such refinancing deals were very common with Start Mortgages and such repossessions were happening in too many cases.

Her estranged husband conceded that he owed the money. He told the court that Start was supposed to demand three years of self-certified accounts, but never did in his case. They had not practised due diligence, he maintained.

Mrs Justice Dunne granted an order for repossession with a stay for nine months.

She told the man she would take the unusual step of making an order for costs against him alone because it was he who initiated the loan.

Ms Justice Dunne made 15 orders for repossession in total yesterday.

In another case she gave a man who said he had a substantial sum of money coming to him two months to hand it over to his mortgage company Stepstone.

The man had mortgage arrears of €73,723.88 and now owed €431,878.47 in total.

The court was told that his repayments over the last two years have only paid approximately half the scheduled repayments and the arrears were accumulating at a “serious rate”.

Ms Justice Dunne adjourned the case until January 16th after being handed a letter by the man which stated that he would be receiving a substantial sum of money within two months.