A POSSESSION order has been granted at the High Court against a woman who, the court heard, could afford to pay her mortgage but was sending the money to her sons in Australia instead.
Also yesterday, Justice Brian McGovern granted an order for repossession of a family home with arrears of €10,000.
In all, Mr Justice McGovern granted 13 possession orders from a list of 62 cases.
Start Mortgages was granted six orders, Stepstone Mortgage Funding Ltd and GE Capital Woodchester Homeloans were granted two each. Springboard Mortgages was granted one order and two commercial orders were granted, one each to Bank of Ireland and the Educational Building Society.
In a case taken by Stepstone, the court was told the defendant had arrears of more than €16,000 on a 32-year mortgage of €245,000.
She had agreed to revised repayments in January after falling into arrears, but although she made some payments since then, she had not kept to the arrangement.
Counsel for Stepstone said the woman had two jobs. She attended a meeting with the lender last Friday and her income and expenditure was examined. It was found she could afford the mortgage.
“But she has two sons in Australia and she’s sending them money, so she can’t pay the mortgage as a result,” counsel said.
Mr Justice McGovern noted the woman had not appeared in court. “She seems to think she has to help her sons in Australia, but she has an obligation to repay this loan,” he said. He granted an order of possession with a stay of three months.
In another case, the judge warned against those in arrears not appearing in court. “If people want help from the courts, insofar as we can help them, they have to turn up and make the case.”
An order of possession was granted to Start Mortgages on a family home in Co Longford. The couple, who had four children, borrowed €75,000 in June 2005 and had arrears of just over €10,000. They had begun defaulting in 2008 when the man lost his job. There had been no contact from the family since the end of June, and no one had appeared in court.
The judge granted the order with a stay of six months because of the children.
In a second order granted to Stepstone, the court heard a 40-year loan of just over €280,000 was granted to a couple, with monthly repayments of €2,167 and interest of 9.5 annual percentage rate. The house was vacant and the couple had split up.
Mr Justice McGovern noted that they began to default on the loan two months into repayments. “It doesn’t say much for the stress-testing applied when the loan was taken out,” he said.
He declined to grant a possession order against a man who borrowed €80,000 from Ulster Bank on a property in Donegal and now had arrears of €23,156. The man told the court he was owed €3,000 from the Department of Agriculture under the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (Reps) and would pay it to the bank as soon as he received it.
He would be due a €10,000 Reps payment in February and he would pass that on, too. Counsel for the bank said the man had said he would pay the €3,000 two months ago, but it had not materialised.
Declining to grant the order, Mr Justice McGovern said the department had not paid out. He warned the defendant if he failed to make the payments, he could be committed to prison for contempt of court.
