# Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since '02!



## DeeFox (26 May 2009)

I only caught part of the programme but was confused by the story of the lady who was about to have her house repossessed. 

Am I right in saying she hadn't made any efforts to pay her mortgage since 2002?  Surely it would have been repossessed long before now if that was the case?  

Additionally, and perhaps this is a bit mean of me, I couldn't help noticing all the prizes for pony/horse riding - isn't this considered an expensive hobby even by those with plenty of money? 

I found it hard to have sympathy for her.  But perhaps I got the wrong impression as I didn't see the full programme - did anyone else catch it?


----------



## elefantfresh (26 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investigates (25th May 09)*

Yes, the main thing that caught me with it was that it seemed she had not made any payments since 2002 - the lady herself didn't deny this - but i do feel if i dont pay my mortgage for 6-7 years that the bank are within their rights to take back my house - they do own in anyways!


----------



## homeowner (26 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investigates (25th May 09)*

I was confused by it too, i caught the last 20 mins of it.  Not sure if we were supposed to feel sorry for her or what.  She told the bank she couldnt afford the mortgage payments back when she took over the mortgage and she went ahead anyway.  Not sure what the point of it was other than she made a very bad financial decision (ditto the bank).  

I thought apart from the builders who were made redundant through no fault of their own, the rest of the people profiled seemed to me to be victims of their own greed (especially in the case of the guy with 15 properties, are we seriously supposed to feel sorry for him) or pure bad financial decisions (like the guy in his 50's with the 1.5Million euro loan on a piece of land that isnt worth much today).


----------



## RonanC (26 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investigates (25th May 09)*

The only people I felt sorry for were the builders (Martin and Dani) who had done nothing wrong. Everyone else seemed to want society to feel sorry for their loss of 'wealth' and the guy who had the 15 properties in the most expensive parts of dublin who claimed that he could be made homeless, sorry but I just dont believe this one bit! Who in their right mind would finance the family home against residential properties as a business (to rent). And if he bought his first rental more than 18 years ago, surely this would be paid off by now with the massive rents he would have been charging throughout the 1990's and 2000's ( I heard €200,000 a year on one property alone mentioned)

The American stocktrader took the biscuit though, seemed to think he was above everyone and looked down on those who were homeless. These guys are making their fortunes on the backs of ordinary people losing their fortunes in the stock market


----------



## Pique318 (26 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investigates (25th May 09)*

I totally agree about that guy with the '€24m' property 'empire'. For crying out loud man, flog one of the houses and make a profit, then pay off the family home and play Monopoly with the rest of them, safe in the knowledge that you at least have a place to live if it all goes Pete Tong !

No sympathy for him.



btw, Viper Foley, Debt Collection ?


----------



## diarmuidc (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investigates (25th May 09)*



elefantfresh said:


> but i do feel if i dont pay my mortgage for 6-7 years that the bank are within their rights to take back my house - they do own in anyways!


Exactly, if, like a lot of people in the 2000-2007 time frame, borrowed most of the money (95+%) then did not replay the borrowings, they can't call the house "theirs". It's the banks house that they are living in.


----------



## MugsGame (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



DeeFox said:


> But perhaps I got the wrong impression as I didn't see the full programme - did anyone else catch it?



Catch up online? [broken link removed]
Unfortunately it's not available on the excellent RTE Player.


----------



## UptheDeise (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*

'Who in their right mind would finance the family home against residential properties as a business (to rent).' 

Plenty of people I would say have done that because they believed that house prices would go up indefinitely. I remember (I think) the teacher on RTE radio. You know, the one on €63,000 who mortgage part of the family home for a property in Bulgaria.


----------



## RonanC (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



UptheDeise said:


> 'Who in their right mind would finance the family home against residential properties as a business (to rent).'
> 
> Plenty of people I would say have done that because they believed that house prices would go up indefinitely. I remember (I think) the teacher on RTE radio. You know, the one on €63,000 who mortgage part of the family home for a property in Bulgaria.


 

This guy was buying property as a business, the rental income seemed to be his only income. Its a well known fact that you never bring your family home anywhere near your business as it will be the first thing to go if all goes belly up!! Selfish and foolish IMO


----------



## TheBlock (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*

Was it not the case that the lady who hadn't paid any of her mortgage since 2002 actually wanted to sell the property when there was enough equity in it to clear the mortgage and give her enough to get a 1/2 bed cottage was hampered in doing this by the bank not being able to locate the deeds or some such? I think that was the case.


----------



## UptheDeise (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



RonanC said:


> This guy was buying property as a business, the rental income seemed to be his only income. Its a well known fact that you never bring your family home anywhere near your business as it will be the first thing to go if all goes belly up!! Selfish and foolish IMO


 
I totally agree it's not only selfish and foolish but madness as well. I'm afraid a lot of people re-mortgaged to get into the property game. Didn't even the big developers offer their own homes as security?

There's nothing worst then the madness of crowds.


----------



## micamaca (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



TheBlock said:


> Was it not the case that the lady who hadn't paid any of her mortgage since 2002 actually wanted to sell the property when there was enough equity in it to clear the mortgage and give her enough to get a 1/2 bed cottage was hampered in doing this by the bank not being able to locate the deeds or some such? I think that was the case.




This lady didn't want to sell, as far as I understood, as the house had been in her family for generations, which is why she was so sorry to lose it. It never explained why she did not make any repayments since 2002. She also said that the bank never gave her legal advice, which i find hard to believe as I'm sure banks say in writing that you should or have the right to legal advice on the loan you are about to take. You can choose to waive this right. 

I did not feel sorry for her or for your man with ten houses. Boo hoo to him... lots of us are overpaying for the one house we could barely afford a few years ago while him and his type got tax breaks and incentives from banks to push house prices up.

The only people I felt sorry for were the two builders who were let go and didn't seem to have any prospects for further work. They and people like them are the real victims here.


----------



## bb12 (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



TheBlock said:


> Was it not the case that the lady who hadn't paid any of her mortgage since 2002 actually wanted to sell the property when there was enough equity in it to clear the mortgage and give her enough to get a 1/2 bed cottage was hampered in doing this by the bank not being able to locate the deeds or some such? I think that was the case.



from what i understood, she seperated from her husband back then. she told the banks she couldn't afford the mortgage on her own and wanted to sell to buy something smaller, but by the time the land registry sorted the title deeds out for her, the bank had slapped on mutlple late fees etc and it all snowballed from there..sounded to me like the banks were not very flexible in working with her to resolve the situation.


----------



## TheBlock (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



bb12 said:


> from what i understood, she seperated from her husband back then. she told the banks she couldn't afford the mortgage on her own and wanted to sell to buy something smaller, but by the time the land registry sorted the title deeds out for her, the bank had slapped on mutlple late fees etc and it all snowballed from there..sounded to me like the banks were not very flexible in working with her to resolve the situation.


 
I thought it was something like that, anyhow should have been sorted long ago between her and the bank most likely down to intransigence of both parties. The guy with the 15 houses I feel as sorry for him as any other business man going out of business now becasue they over extended, thats just the risk you take when setting out.


----------



## extopia (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*

What did ye think of the builder doing the letting go? He's Jerry Beades, good friend of Bertie Aherne and a member of the Fianna Fail national executive. He gave those guys their notice in front of the cameras. Either that, or the whole thing was staged. He was crying about having to sell his apartments at a loss because of the recession, but the truth is Mr. Beades could have finished the development (which is in Fairview, Dublin)  years ago except he couldn't get planning permission for his original development. By the time he redesigned and scaled down, it was too late.


----------



## Pique318 (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*

A developer friend of Berties couldn't get planning permission ?? 

Shurely shome mishtake ?


----------



## MissRibena (27 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



UptheDeise said:


> I totally agree it's not only selfish and foolish but madness as well. I'm afraid a lot of people re-mortgaged to get into the property game. Didn't even the big developers offer their own homes as security?
> 
> There's nothing worst then the madness of crowds.


 
This is all fine in theory and I agree that this guy seems particularly reckless but as someone who has worked in lots of very small businesses and comes from a family of small business owners of one kind or another (although no property-related ones), you often won't get finance (particularly for working capital requirements) without a personal guarantee. In manufacturing and retail businesses it would be really difficult to get off the ground without having huge start-up funds, the kind of which, if you had you wouldn't be setting up a small business with in the first place. It's the people who take these kind of risks who have paid for my comfortable lifestyle growing up and now pay my wages. Yes, the consequences are rough if it all goes wrong but often these kind of businesses will involve the wife/partner as a co-director so it's not done behind their back. One thing's for sure with the house on the line, the business won't go without a massive fight.


----------



## room305 (28 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



MissRibena said:


> It's the people who take these kind of risks who have paid for my comfortable lifestyle growing up and now pay my wages. Yes, the consequences are rough if it all goes wrong but often these kind of businesses will involve the wife/partner as a co-director so it's not done behind their back. One thing's for sure with the house on the line, the business won't go without a massive fight.



The guy was a slum landlord whose "business plan" involved flaunting planning laws, not the next Bill Gates.


----------



## sandrat (28 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*

did this woman pay nothing to the bank, no even like 50 euro a week or something to show she had some intention of trying to pay something?


----------



## MissRibena (28 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*

*room305* That's why I said:



MissRibena said:


> ... I agree that this guy seems particularly reckless ...


 
No-one I was talking about are Bill Gates types either.  Just making somewhere from meagre to comfortable livings and that was during the boom.  I'm not defending the guy on PrimeTime or saying that business owners are altruistic, just that without the risk takers many businesses and the related jobs wouldn't exist.


----------



## UptheDeise (28 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



MissRibena said:


> *room305* That's why I said:
> 
> 
> 
> No-one I was talking about are Bill Gates types either. Just making somewhere from meagre to comfortable livings and that was during the boom. I'm not defending the guy on PrimeTime or saying that business owners are altruistic, just that without the risk takers many businesses and the related jobs wouldn't exist.


 
But that's it, they are risk takers and need to take the consequence of those risks. It didn't provide you or anybody else with a confortable livings you did that yourself by charging for your skills.

Also how could a guy who has so much property starting since he was 21 not see any of this comiong.

I'm not saying he should have a crystal ball nor would I like to see anyone suffer because of this crisis but there's something fishy about the story really.


----------



## MissRibena (28 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*

My point is that more risk-averse among us wouldn't be employed and reap the relative benefits and protection the status affords, unless others took the chance to become employers.

Having all your eggs in one basket isn't desireable. In not seeing this coming or in being delusional about the long-term economic prospects, this guy was hardly on his own. I don't feel sorry for him but I didn't jump on the property bandwagon before and I won't be jumping on the property investor-bashing bandwagon now either.

As far as I could see he is taking the consequences, which are pretty stark.  The point is that I don't think he was particularly 'stupid' to put his house on the line.  Plenty of small businesses end up with the family homes of the owners on the line either directly or indirectly and if they didn't do it, there'd be less jobs for the likes of me.


----------



## extopia (28 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



UptheDeise said:


> I'm not saying he should have a crystal ball nor would I like to see anyone suffer because of this crisis but there's something fishy about the story really.



I agree. But this was "Prime Time Investigates," and the only investigating that was done was tracking down a couple of people who aren't doing too well after the bust. There was feck all investigation in this programme. Just pithy stories, and the journalists didn't even bother to anticipate the obvious questions that are being asked in this thread and answer them in the programme.

The silence accompanying the closing credits was unintentionally hilarious, suggesting as it did that we had just witnessed great tragedy (we'd just seen a couple of construction workers being let go, nothing more, nothing less.)

Your license fee at work, folks.


----------



## extopia (28 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



room305 said:


> The guy was a slum landlord whose "business plan" involved flaunting planning laws...



How did you reach this conclusion? Was this suggested in the programme?


----------



## sidzer (29 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*

why are so many people jumping on the guy with the houses?

do we not need landlords? I know I once was glad to be able to rent when I was in college and also when I worked in different parts of the country. Thankfully my experiences with landlords were mostly positive.

If he owned 10 pubs and was about to lose them would it be the same reponse - or a chain of creches / restaurants... He obviously worked hard from a young age and was he not entitled to gain from his hard work.If he was paying his taxes and providing a good service is he not entitled to the same sympathy as any other business person?

I personally admire people who are willing to work hard and take risks no matter what business they are in and if it goes wrong for whatever reason big man small man the pain of loss and failure is the same for everyone.


----------



## Pique318 (29 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



sidzer said:


> why are so many people jumping on the guy with the houses?


Well if you have to ask...

It's because he had a €24m 'empire' of properties but yet was stupid enough to:
A) Not cash in on one or more of them and release enough equity to pay off the family home and set himself and his wife & kids up safely & securely

or

B) Not see the inevitable end of the boom when it was being broadcast from the rooftops.

Whether it's stupidity or greed or a mixture of both is debatable.

Me, I think it was greed...and he's lost everything. 

No-one's having a go at him because he's a landlord. If he was, as you say, a pub or restaurant owner and went on Prime Time with the same spiel, I'd have the same opinion of him....that he is a fool.


----------



## room305 (29 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



MissRibena said:


> I'm not defending the guy on PrimeTime or saying that business owners are altruistic, just that without the risk takers many businesses and the related jobs wouldn't exist.





MissRibena said:


> My point is that more risk-averse among us wouldn't be employed and reap the relative benefits and protection the status affords, unless others took the chance to become employers.


 


MissRibena said:


> The point is that I don't think he was particularly 'stupid' to put his house on the line.  Plenty of small businesses end up with the family homes of the owners on the line either directly or indirectly and if they didn't do it, there'd be less jobs for the likes of me.



You do a disservice to other small business owners (and I am one) by comparing them with this fool. Thanks to his fecklessness, the fecklessness of the banks and the fecklessness of the government in underwriting all of this nonsense there will be less jobs and credit available to the rest of us risk takers (those of us who understand the concept of risk) for generations to come.



extopia said:


> How did you reach this conclusion? Was this suggested in the programme?



This was my understanding of his plan. That he intended to subdivide the house into flats by pre-tending it was a "pre-63" house.


----------



## Bronte (29 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



room305 said:


> This was my understanding of his plan. That he intended to subdivide the house into flats by pre-tending it was a "pre-63" house.


 
Still fail to see how this makes him a slum landlord?  Sub-dividing a house doesn't make you a slum landlord does it?

In relation to ring fencing the family home, most business people are asked for personal guarantees in order to get a business loan.  That's the way it works.  If you are very clever you of course try to ensure that the family home is protected.  But it's not always possible.  I didn't see the programe so I cannot comment properly on that landlords business but we do need people to be able to create businesses which in turn creates employment and wealth.  It sounds to me like he overextended, borrowed too much when banks were throwing out the money and he never thought about a downturn.


----------



## UptheDeise (29 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*



extopia said:


> I agree. But this was "Prime Time Investigates," and the only investigating that was done was tracking down a couple of people who aren't doing too well after the bust. There was feck all investigation in this programme. Just pithy stories, and the journalists didn't even bother to anticipate the obvious questions that are being asked in this thread and answer them in the programme.
> 
> The silence accompanying the closing credits was unintentionally hilarious, suggesting as it did that we had just witnessed great tragedy (we'd just seen a couple of construction workers being let go, nothing more, nothing less.)
> 
> Your license fee at work, folks.


 
The music they played in the background was like something you would hear in a soppy love story gone wrong. I was shouting at the screen, as the interviewer didn't ask the necessary questions. 

RTE can at times let themselves down with this soddy docu-emo-drama type thingy programming.


----------



## MissRibena (29 May 2009)

*Re: Prime Time Investig (25/5/09): Lady who made no effort to pay her mortgage since*

I totally agree that the production of the programme was very strange (kindest word I can think of) and the whole thing was very cringeworthy.  The people they picked as examples of the 'victims' of the recession, with the exception of the guys on the building site, must have had the people who are really struggling screaming at the TV.


----------

