The son of an elderly woman suing a bank and a firm of solicitors over a series of transactions which allegedly left her without a home and with a €2 million debt has told the Commercial Court he had been “financially ruined” trying to secure his mother’s future care and accommodation.
“My attempts to provide for my mother have failed,” Jonathan Ryan said in an affidavit.
Mr Justice Micheal Peart is hearing proceedings by Mr Ryan and his wife Paula, and by his mother Elizabeth (88), who has dementia and is a ward of court, over the transactions involved and legal advice given.
Elizabeth Ryan, through a court-appointed officer, is suing AIB and Joynt and Crawford Solicitors, Anglesea Street, Dublin, claiming they were in breach of their duty of care when Jonathan decided to secure his mother’s future by selling off her home and his own home, on adjoining sites at Castlepark Road/Breffni Lane, Sandycove, Dublin.
‘Breach of duty’
Mr Ryan, who works for the Dutch-owned bank ING, and his wife Paula, who works for AIB, are suing the same solicitors for breach of professional duty in relation to advice given during the transactions.
The defendants deny the claims and AIB has alleged fraudulent misrepresentation against the couple over not telling it Mrs Ryan was suffering from dementia. The Ryans deny this and say the bank knew she was in a nursing home.
In evidence yesterday, Mr Ryan told Robert Barron SC, for Elizabeth Ryan, that in the early 2000s he became concerned about the mental health of his mother, who lived alone having been widowed in 1986.
When she fell and broke her wrist in May 2006, she was persuaded to convalesce in a nursing home on a short-term basis. Mr Ryan and his wife decided to sell their house, plus his mother’s, buy another house and establish a €1 million fund for her future care and maintenance.
After some difficulties finding an alternative house, they found Khyber Lodge, Nerano Road, Dalkey. They decided – although they had not sold the other two houses – to buy it and paid €3.5 million for it.
Mr Ryan obtained power of attorney from his mother which allowed him to buy Khyber Lodge in her name so as to minimise his tax liability with a mortgage of €4.1 million advance by AIB for the purchase and for bridging finance.
No warning
Mr Ryan said Joynt and Crawford provided professional services for the signing over of power of attorney and the purchase of the new house. At no stage was he warned of the risks to his and his mother’s assets, he said.
By the time they sold, the property bubble had burst. Mr Ryan’s house sold for €1.95 million, when €2.5 million was anticipated. An offer of €3.4 million was made, then dropped, on his mother’s house. It finally sold, in 2010, for €1.4 million.
Although most of the proceeds went to pay the €4.1 million loan, there was still a debt to AIB of nearly €2 million.
The case continues.