A DEVELOPER who paid €1.1 million for a penthouse apartment in Dublin in 2007 has told the High Court it is now worth €550,000.
Irish Life and Permanent applied to the court to repossess the property at The Slade, Tassagard, Citywest, described by its owner, Deane McEvoy, Carpenterstown, Dublin, as “Hollywood material”.
Mr McEvoy had borrowed €850,000 from the lender to purchase the €1.1 million property in 2007, with interest-only repayments of €3,100 a month. He had lived in the penthouse for a time after separating from his wife, with whom he had two children, but now had tenants who paid €1,200 a month in rent.
He told Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne yesterday he had been unemployed, but recently got a consultancy job. The property was now valued at €550,000, he said. He had other properties and would like to reach a settlement with the lender.
Counsel for the lender sought possession, pointing out that arrears on the loan were in excess of €60,000.
Ms Justice Dunne told Mr McEvoy his arrears were “only going one way”. She asked him to provide a written valuation for the apartment and to return to court in February.
“Also consider whether it might be more prudent to dispose of the property,” she said.
Mr McEvoy said outside the court that, despite the property collapse, he had managed to hold on to 25 properties, including some abroad. In the current climate, “you couldn’t give the stuff away”, he said. He also acknowledged that financial stress had put pressure on his marriage.
He believed the attitude of the banks had changed in the last few months; at the beginning of the collapse they were “cowboys”, but now they were willing to talk because “they had no bloody choice”.
Meanwhile, Stepstone Mortgages Funding has been granted possession of a property at Athboy, Co Meath.
A woman had applied for a €285,000 mortgage as a single person in 2007, the court was told, but it appeared she was now married and had two children.
Her husband had told the lender they had both lost their jobs after their business failed and they were “struggling to survive”. The arrears amounted to almost €33,000.
When the lender attempted to deliver the legal documents to the family in October, they found it had been abandoned.
