# High Court refuses to overturn repossession - no payments since 2007



## Brendan Burgess (24 Jun 2021)

Couple lose appeal over repossession of Dublin 11 home
					

No repayments made on mortgage since 2007




					www.irishtimes.com
				




The Circuit Court granted a summary order - no need for a full trial.
They appealed to the High Court to get a full hearing.
High Court refused as there was no credible defence.

1992 - loan of €59,500 given - 30 year loan
2007 - payments stopped
Current balance: €187k


_In opposing the possession application, Mrs Mooney said she had a reasonable belief and understanding, particularly from a letter of the plaintiff of January 2000, the mortgage was due to expire in July 2007. The couple complied with their obligations in full, with a last payment made in October 2007, she said.

The judge said the 2000 letter referred, inter alia to the loan term being “271 months, expiring July 2007” . The plaintiffs had said the July 2007 reference ought to have read July 2022 and was a “typographical error”._


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## Brendan Burgess (24 Jun 2021)

So they have had free accommodation since 2007.

And now they will probably qualify for the Mortgage to Rent Scheme.

So the taxpayer will keep them in their home.

Brendan


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## LS400 (24 Jun 2021)

When it says they were legally represented, does that mean to an extent, that supposedly intelligent beings, really thought this couple were been hard done by, in trying to evade their mortgage payments.

Are we the only Country that entertain this absolute nonsense. ? How in the name of all that's holy does it take so long to sort out an obvious misdemeanor, to put it very very mildly.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (24 Jun 2021)

It's hard to make sense of the story.

Balance was €60k in 2006 and no payments since. Balance is €187k today.

But you'd need a rate of about 8.5% for arrears to accrue to that level.....how is that possible?


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## Buddyboy (24 Jun 2021)

Article says that interest rate was 10.9%  
It was also an endowment mortgage, so none of the principal was being paid back.


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## LS400 (24 Jun 2021)

Another angle here,

If back in the day when payments stopped in 2007, say this had this been sorted within months, which really it should have been. as in they were told by their legal representatives, you risk loosing your property unless payments are honored, instead of seeking to exploit an obvious typo error, do the couple have a case against their legal team. 

How could any legal rep, even think for a moment that this was right, it beggars belief that it has taken 14 years to sort this..


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## Thirsty (24 Jun 2021)

> 1992 - loan of €59,500 given - 30 year loan



From memory, I would say this would have bought a suburban semi in most Dublin areas at that time.  The same properties that would now be on the market for say €350k.  

So if they sold the property in reasonable condition, not only are they out of debt, have lived rent/mortgage free for 14 years (so they should have saved say €60k), and they will have a lump sum of say €150k.

€200k will still buy you a modest home outside Dublin.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (24 Jun 2021)

Buddyboy said:


> It was also an endowment mortgage, so none of the principal was being paid back.


I'm too young to know what an endowment mortgage was

Was this basically a fixed-rate, interest-only mortgage at 11%.......in 2007?




Thirsty said:


> From memory, I would say this would have bought a suburban semi in most Dublin areas at that time. The same properties that would now be on the market for say €350k.



They could have sold for (minimum) €500k in 2006, paid off the €60k mortgage and lived somewhere slightly smaller or less salubrious rent free since then. There was either a serious head in the sand or very bad advice here.


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## Leo (24 Jun 2021)

LS400 said:


> How could any legal rep, even think for a moment that this was right, it beggars belief that it has taken 14 years to sort this..


The legal rep will offer advice, but must act in accordance with their client's instruction. Some clients don't take advice very well.


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## Thirsty (24 Jun 2021)

General observation here; it seems to me that we often take the view that anyone who fails to pay their mortgage  and eventually ends up with their home repossessed is foolish or badly advised.

But I wonder if that is in fact the case?  The people in question here have lived rent free; or, for all we know, rented it out and enjoyed a tax free income with zero outgoings.

Perhaps I'm more cynical, but I often think that they know perfectly well what they are doing and the poorly designed legal system allows them to get away with it.


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## Purple (24 Jun 2021)

I'm aware of someone who has lived in a house worth well over a million Euro for the last 14 years and hasn't made a single mortgage payment. Not only that but they have their old house rented out and pocket the income. They have been in court multiple times but just refuse to engage so the above case is nothing unusual.


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## MrEarl (24 Jun 2021)

Hello, 

Unfortunitely, I don't have an Irish Times subscription, so can't read the article. 

Does it mention what happened to the endowment policy - I assume that there was some return on investment, at maturity? 

I'm really getting sick and tired of reading about,  and hearing about, people living rent and mortgage free for sick long periods - our legislators really need to tighten up the laws, so that the judicial system then has no excuse for allowing these cases run on so long.


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## Buddyboy (24 Jun 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> I'm too young to know what an endowment mortgage was
> 
> Was this basically a fixed-rate, interest-only mortgage at 11%.......in 2007?


If I remember correctly, the idea of an endowment mortgage was that you only paid the interest on the loan, and also paid for an Endowment life insurance policy.  The idea was that the policy matured at the same time that the mortgage was due, paying off the principal.

At the time these were offered, it was another vehicle to allow people to buy houses at, what was on the face of it, a cheaper cost. But the downside that people didn't (or didn't want to) realise was the debt (capital of house) was fixed, but the gains on the endowment were variable.

On a side note, I remember at the time a lot of these policies matured, they did so with a less than the capital sum final figure (due to the state of the economy at the time).  I know a few people who got a shock to realise that there was still a balance left on their mortgage, sometimes a substantial one.

(showing my age now  )


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## Brendan Burgess (24 Jun 2021)

An endowment mortgage was two products
1) an interest only mortgage
2) An endowment savings policy which built up enough to repay the mortgage balance on the maturity date. 

The article says that the life policy stopped being paid which was presumably the endowment bit? 

But it would have only been for the original amount borrowed anyway.

Brendan


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## LS400 (24 Jun 2021)

Leo said:


> The legal rep will offer advice, but must act in accordance with their client's instruction



If I were the judge here, Id want to know did the legal team offer to make them see sense back in the day when this saga could have been brought to a halt.



Brendan Burgess said:


> 2) An endowment savings policy which built up enough to repay the mortgage balance on the maturity date.



That's exactly what we took out in 1990 on a 20 year mortgage. The other half who has much better knowledge on these things, knew years before maturity, there would be a shortfall on completion of the 20 year term.
This plan was then cashed in, and paid to our loan.
It must have been about 12 years into the endowment plan at that stage, we reverted to a standard mortgage for the remainder of the term  .


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## Johnno75 (24 Jun 2021)

LS400 said:


> If I were the judge here, Id want to know did the legal team offer to make them see sense back in the day when this saga could have been brought to a halt.


Sensible. But not the judge’s function alas. The judge hears the evidence and applies the law when adjudicating.


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## Clamball (26 Jun 2021)

MrEarl said:


> Hello,
> 
> Unfortunitely, I don't have an Irish Times subscription, so can't read the article.
> 
> Does it mention what happened to the endowment policy - I assume that there was some return on investment, at maturity?


“The possession order was sought arising from a 30-year Endowment Home Loan for €59,500, at an initial interest rate of 10.9 per cent, made by Irish Permanent plc in March 1992 to buy the Fairways Park property.
The mortgage terms provided the total debt outstanding would be immediately repayable if the defendants defaulted in making two monthly repayments and it was not disputed the defendants made no repayments since October 10th, 2007, the judge said.”


“The ambiguity undoubtedly contained in the 2000 letter had been resolved by a letter from the plaintiffs of October 5th, 2006 which stated the loan had not expired, there were 190 months left on it, some €60,500 was outstanding and there were arrears of €1,534, she said.
It was also stated there was no life cover assigned to the mortgage as the clients’ endowment policy with Irish Life had lapsed and the loan was converted in 2000 to an annuity.”


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## Clamball (26 Jun 2021)

Are this couple totally motivated by getting one over on the bank or stupidity or ignorance or greed?  I just don’t get their motivation at all.  

They had €62K left to pay off in 2007 and just stopped.   They have gone the court route building up additional debt along the way and have hired a legal team to represent them.  I am assuming they have spent more than €62K since on this legal defence, and if I was their legal team I would want money up front because they are known defaulters.  So they have 14 years rent free living but now have a much higher debt and I assume all the bank costs of the legal case?  Even if they were both unemployed in 2007 they could have paid something towards the mortgage?  In my opinion they have made incredibly bad decisions along the way.



Same couple?


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## peemac (26 Jun 2021)

I suspect that Jimmy in the pub said that they didn't have to pay.

Jimmy of course is the local pub's financial and legal expert and stated loudly and clearly that once it is written down that the final payment is 2007, then that's it and its watertight.

Jimmy says that you can ignore that the letter also says 271 months from 2000 and that the error was glaringly obvious. 

Jimmy says that bank errors on always in your favour - he read that on a  monopoly card.


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## Brendan Burgess (26 Jun 2021)

Clamball said:


> Same couple?



Yes. I checked the Annual Return for Excel Dry Cleaning and Geraldine Mooney of 8 Fairways Park , Griffith Road, is a director.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (26 Jun 2021)

Sure didn't they bail out the banks so why should they pay their mortgage if they can get away with it? 

In most cases I have seen, the lender is not given their costs.  Not sure what happened in the Circuit Court or High Court in this case.

Brendan


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## Purple (29 Jun 2021)

What I find concerning is that from the date you can stop paying your mortgage it takes 14 years (and counting) to evict you.


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## lff12 (5 Aug 2021)

The sad thing about this was that it was entirely avoidable. The lady seems to have had a perfect decent business for many years and probably wasn't paying the much. She seems an ok sort from the interview posted. What I find incredible about this case is that they could persistently believe for 14 years that the lender was in the wrong. This should have been heard far sooner than 14 years after they stopped paying.


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