# At long last, a sensible High Court judge rejecting a PIA



## Brendan Burgess (31 Mar 2020)

Indebted couple told to ‘downsize’ as plan to remain in €1m home rejected
					

Pair say they are unable to afford house for them, four children and au pair with money left from sale




					www.irishtimes.com
				




They have a house worth €1m and a mortgage of €700k.  They live in a 5 bedroom home in a gated community and want to keep it.

The judge told them to sell the house and buy a house for €300k. 

Brendan


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## Black Sheep (31 Mar 2020)

+1
Many of us managed to survive and rear our 4 or more children in a three bed semi


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## RedOnion (31 Mar 2020)

Black Sheep said:


> Many of us managed to survive and rear our 4 or more children in a three bed semi


But where did you keep the Au pair?...


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## noproblem (31 Mar 2020)

I'm sure that couple feel hard done by that Judge considering others kept theirs.


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## demoivre (31 Mar 2020)

Bizarre that a PIA was applied for when there was positive equity in the home, and no other debt involved. For the PIA to go through the couple would have to show that Promontoria would be worse off if the property was repossessed and sold ( and typically negative equity dealt with through bankruptcy) which clearly wouldn't have been the case here. 

So the judge here is doing no different to what the judge did in the McNamara / Lowe case but the populist view in that particular case was that manners needed to be put on the pair of them. PIAs are all about the Maths.


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## TLO (31 Mar 2020)

And the judge was less than impressed with a PIA proposal which obliged the couple to pay over €3k a month until they are into their late 70s.  The judge felt that there was a significant risk of them becoming insolvent in their later years.

Of course, if the couple had been paying over €3k a month during the past few years it's unlikely there would have been a need for a PIA application in the first place.


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