Key Post "Why borrowers should not fear repossession courts"

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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Karl Deeter, Séamus Coffey and I have been documenting the proceedings in the repossession courts. We have written about provisional results in today's Irish Times.

Inside the property repossession courts, where only one in five borrowers turn up

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Made homeless
Repossession cases are almost always painted as a struggling family made homeless by an avaricious, uncaring bank, despite the family’s best efforts to keep their home. In fact, of 15 cases where the lender sought an order for repossession and where the borrower showed up in court, only two orders were granted. The other 13 were adjourned against the wishes of the lender. There were 13 other orders for repossessions of family homes where the borrower did not appear.

In all cases where an order was granted, a stay of execution for up to nine months was put on the order. Many of the homes involved will not actually be repossessed as the borrower still has a chance to resume repayments.
 
Only 2 repossessions of people who actually showed up...1 borrower who's paid nothing for 6 years and yet was given another 4 months stay. And another who's paid nothing since 2010 and is given another 8 months stay.
But there's no Strategic Default in Ireland, no way siree! great little country.

Well, at least now those on SVR's can see the 'market conditions' the Banks are dealing with which are causing their rates to stay 2% over the European average
 
Attending these courts really has been an eye opener. I haven't yet managed to fully document the cases I saw. But Séamus Coffey has much more detail on his blog

What happens when 69 repossession cases come before the courts? Some notes from a Cork sitting.

No borrower who was present or represented had an order for possession granted against them. Their cases were adjourned by the County Registrar for one reason or another. In these cases the County Registrar was excellent. She listened patiently to the respondents, never interrupted and was helpful and understanding. The pace of the proceedings can be bewildering but when a borrower was present the pace slowed right down. The County Registrar allowed the borrowers the space to say what they wanted to but, in the main, kept the exchanges to the salient points.

All cases where the applicant sought to proceed with the order for possession and the borrower was present were adjourned. In one such case no payments had been made since April 2009 with €76,400 of arrears accrued and the County Registrar emphasised the importance of making some repayments. There were two other cases adjourned where the borrower was present and had not made any repayment since 2011 and these had €54,000 and €140,000 of arrears respectively. In most cases where the borrower was present and the applicant wished to proceed with the case few details of the mortgage were confirmed.
 
Hope you have your flak jacket and helmet on Brendan...I'd be expecting incoming if I were you from the usual sources!
 
What are we dealing with here:
1. Strategic Defaulting....pay nothing for as long as possible and eventually the Govt will look after us (this involves not showing up at court appearances)
2. Complete dis-interest. Pay nothing until eventually kicked out a few years down the line because you have no money/no interest anymore in the properties, and so be it
3. Fear of letters etc from the Banks, Courts etc causing people to ignore their situation (this despite the fact that there are now so many avenues to go to for help, that it seems impossible 80% of those going to Court would still be in that state)
4 Something else?
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Made homeless
Repossession cases are almost always painted as a struggling family made homeless by an avaricious, uncaring bank, despite the family’s best efforts to keep their home. In fact, of 15 cases where the lender sought an order for repossession and where the borrower showed up in court, only two orders were granted. The other 13 were adjourned against the wishes of the lender. There were 13 other orders for repossessions of family homes where the borrower did not appear.
Click to expand...

Is this not just more can kicking? Surely borrowers unable to meet their monthly obligations have no possibility of clearing tens of thousands of arrears anytime soon so the bank will still seek possession.
Do the bank just give up or will a series of adjournments ultimately conclude with a possession order?
 
pat2 said:

"So in a nutshell, we are now paying our full mortgage, we are addressing our arrears and have established a new business and at the end of a six-year battle and the toughest road you can imagine, the judge is going to repossess anyway?"
Click to expand...

I don't understand that either.
 
pat2 said:
Maybe there's more to this story but it doesn't seem that the courts are so lenient here: http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifest...-of-being-wrecked-by-repossession-323946.html

"So in a nutshell, we are now paying our full mortgage, we are addressing our arrears and have established a new business and at the end of a six-year battle and the toughest road you can imagine, the judge is going to repossess anyway?"
Click to expand...
Can anyone write an unchecked/unverified piece for an Irish daily now! Unless there's a lot of the real story not being told there (personal guarantees for the business?), there's an awful lot of holes in that article
The judges are repossessing homes at an alarming rate...It tells us that the courts are now showing absolutely no mercy, do not care about mitigating circumstances and they will eventually repossess your home — one way or the other.
Click to expand...
 
Delboy said:
Can anyone write an unchecked/unverified piece for an Irish daily now! Unless there's a lot of the real story not being told there (personal guarantees for the business?), there's an awful lot of holes in that article
Click to expand...

I may be wrong but it seems that Brendan's analysis was of cases coming before the Registrar. It appears in that article that it was a judge presiding over the matter.
If the above story is true it would seem that borrowers have nothing to fear from Registrars as they will likely adjourn it until it is eventually before a judge who will ultimately have to rule on it according to the law.
 
Hi pat

We documented 294 cases. Only 2 cases were referred to the Judge's Listing.

A case is only sent to the Judge's Listing when there is a bona-fide defence.

Brendan
 
Hi pat

I have read that Irish Examiner piece. We really would want to hear the full story.

It's a High Court case. 99% of the cases are now in the Circuit Court. So this was in the High Court either because it was an old case or a very big house.

She provides absolutely no financial details.


"tomorrow is our 14th appearance in under two years."

The minimum adjournment we saw was 3 months. Most were for 8 months. There have to be many other issues going on here.

"Don’t get me wrong, I am all in favour of anarchy and the Land League have helped many people and are graciously generous with their time"

As a general rule, anarchists don't really like paying their debts. I would guess that when they were in business a few years ago, they probably were happy to use the courts to get their debtors to pay them.


"LAST November we presented the banks and the courts with extremely viable proposals"

OK, so this is not one lender lending for a family home. There is more than one bank involved.

"The judges are repossessing homes at an alarming rate."

Why not provide the figures? I don't think that the judges are often involved.


"The insolvency bill was never going to work. We knew that and decided not to apply. Bankruptcy is not an option as you lose your home."

This is what might be happening. It's only a guess. They live in a house worth €800,000 with an ordinary mortgage of €200,000. In other words, they have €600,000 worth of equity. They have run up big debts unrelated to the home, but the creditors got judgement mortgages for those debts. Those creditors want the house sold so that they can get paid.

"So in a nutshell, we are now paying our full mortgage, we are addressing our arrears"

They may well be addressing their arrears, but I suspect that they are not paying their unsecured creditors who are fed up with all the messing.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Hi pat

We documented 294 cases. Only 2 cases were referred to the Judge's Listing.

A case is only sent to the Judge's Listing when there is a bona-fide defence.

Brendan
Click to expand...

Hi Brendan,

So at what point does the Registrar stop being sympathetic to borrowers if the lender is insisting on a possession?

Would unreasonableness by the lender in refusing to accept an alternative payment arrangment be considered a bona-fide defense?

Thanks
 
Brendan can you break down Borrower present/Solicitor present? It seems that vast majority of those are unrepresented and in most case the no shows is due to people being afraid to represent themselves.

I don't accept the Banks have it easy. This whole Registrar system is unconstitutional on so many levels and a lot of repossessions are being uncontested because obviously those in trouble can't afford representation.

Particularly article 6 of European Human rights Convention being the right to a fair trial seems to be an afterthought of this whole procedure.

I'm not saying your article is wrong but most repossessions are granted by the Registrars which is wrong. The Banks by being allowed to use such a system for enforcement is wrong. It should be fought and argued out in a competent court.

The high count of cases adjourned is due to most cases being adjourned at first instance I believe.
 
Raging Bull said:
It seems that vast majority of those are unrepresented and in most case the no shows is due to people being afraid to represent themselves.
Click to expand...

Thats a big assumption! We have David Hall getting unlimited free publicity for the past few years...New Beginnings, MABS, FLAC, Phoenix Foundation, PIA's etc etc. Plenty of help out there.
I can understand a small % being fearful, but 80%......!!!
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Hi pat

I have read that Irish Examiner piece. We really would want to hear the full story.

It's a High Court case. 99% of the cases are now in the Circuit Court. So this was in the High Court either because it was an old case or a very big house.

She provides absolutely no financial details.


"tomorrow is our 14th appearance in under two years."

The minimum adjournment we saw was 3 months. Most were for 8 months. There have to be many other issues going on here.

"Don’t get me wrong, I am all in favour of anarchy and the Land League have helped many people and are graciously generous with their time"

As a general rule, anarchists don't really like paying their debts. I would guess that when they were in business a few years ago, they probably were happy to use the courts to get their debtors to pay them.


"LAST November we presented the banks and the courts with extremely viable proposals"

OK, so this is not one lender lending for a family home. There is more than one bank involved.

"The judges are repossessing homes at an alarming rate."

Why not provide the figures? I don't think that the judges are often involved.


"The insolvency bill was never going to work. We knew that and decided not to apply. Bankruptcy is not an option as you lose your home."

This is what might be happening. It's only a guess. They live in a house worth €800,000 with an ordinary mortgage of €200,000. In other words, they have €600,000 worth of equity. They have run up big debts unrelated to the home, but the creditors got judgement mortgages for those debts. Those creditors want the house sold so that they can get paid.

"So in a nutshell, we are now paying our full mortgage, we are addressing our arrears"

They may well be addressing their arrears, but I suspect that they are not paying their unsecured creditors who are fed up with all the messing.
Click to expand...

It does appear, as I said in my original post, that there may be more to the story.

Nevertheless, as somebody who is on the cusp of legal proceedings, it does nothing to ease my worries. On the other hand your research provides me with some reassurance that there is a level of understanding in the courts process.

Just yesterday I received a letter from my lenders solicitor that they intend to issue legal proceedings. I speak more about it in this post from last night. [broken link removed]
 
The Irish Examiner has another scandalous article in today's paper

When the bailiffs come knocking: The families facing down homelessness

This is really disgraceful:

The Central Bank itself expects that up to 50,000 people could find themselves homeless by the year’s end due to repossessions and rent hikes.


I very much doubt that the Central Bank has said anything of the sort. I doubt if they comment on rent hikes.

and

Over 8,000 people have already lost their homes this year

Where has this figure come from? 1,000 lost their homes last year.

Brendan
 
The Irish Examiner Riches to Rags column has a series of articles, none of which gives any details, except that she remortgaged her home to invest in a business and the banks are blaggards.

Feb 11,2013 http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifest...-to-rags-life-as-the-nouveau-poor-222225.html

March 5, 2013 http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifest...-to-rags-life-as-the-nouveau-poor-226369.html

April 1, 2013 http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifest...to-rags--life-as-the-nouveau-poor-226961.html

October 2013 http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/why-ill-fight-all-the-way-to-save-my-home-246024.html
The Master of the High Court, Edmond Honohan , kept throwing out the bank's case which forced the banks to appeal his decision.
 
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Delboy said:
Thats a big assumption! We have David Hall getting unlimited free publicity for the past few years...New Beginnings, MABS, FLAC, Phoenix Foundation, PIA's etc etc. Plenty of help out there.
I can understand a small % being fearful, but 80%......!!!
Click to expand...

MABS nor FLAC ain't going to represent you in court.
 
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