One issue that has bothered me for quite some time, is the role that our professions and "professionals" played in Ireland's boom and bust.
People who relied on professionals to safe guard their interests were badly let down by incompetent, negligent and greedy individuals at all levels and yet it seems that they have not received their fair shame of the blame in the fall out.
Surely, any Solicitor that was handling the affairs of an amateur BTL'r had a duty of care to their clients, to express caution and to flag the downside of reckless investments.
Similarly, Accountants who were often employed to give advice on large financial decisions appear to have failed in many cases and were apparently oblivious to the basic cornerstones of good financial advice.
I'm aware of one particular case where a family with four investment properties was offered 680,000 (now worth 220,000) for one of their properties in 2007.The family responded to the offer by saying that they needed to seek the advice of their Accountant. Within one week they replied that the Accountant's advice was to retain the property "for their pension" and based on the fact that interest paid was fully allowable against rental income for tax purposes, "they would be mad to sell it" That family is now in London queuing up at the bankruptcy court.
Now, I'm not going to brand all professionals with the same brush. I'm sure there were plenty of good competent and diligent practitioners who attempted to guide clients in the right direction and presumably good sound advice was not always heeded. There were also the rogue Professionals and these should be hounded out and called to account.
I think that anybody that now finds themselves in a bad situation should consider whether the Professionals that they employed to help them with big decisions in the boom time did actually give them appropriate advice.
People who relied on professionals to safe guard their interests were badly let down by incompetent, negligent and greedy individuals at all levels and yet it seems that they have not received their fair shame of the blame in the fall out.
Surely, any Solicitor that was handling the affairs of an amateur BTL'r had a duty of care to their clients, to express caution and to flag the downside of reckless investments.
Similarly, Accountants who were often employed to give advice on large financial decisions appear to have failed in many cases and were apparently oblivious to the basic cornerstones of good financial advice.
I'm aware of one particular case where a family with four investment properties was offered 680,000 (now worth 220,000) for one of their properties in 2007.The family responded to the offer by saying that they needed to seek the advice of their Accountant. Within one week they replied that the Accountant's advice was to retain the property "for their pension" and based on the fact that interest paid was fully allowable against rental income for tax purposes, "they would be mad to sell it" That family is now in London queuing up at the bankruptcy court.
Now, I'm not going to brand all professionals with the same brush. I'm sure there were plenty of good competent and diligent practitioners who attempted to guide clients in the right direction and presumably good sound advice was not always heeded. There were also the rogue Professionals and these should be hounded out and called to account.
I think that anybody that now finds themselves in a bad situation should consider whether the Professionals that they employed to help them with big decisions in the boom time did actually give them appropriate advice.