Developer claims ‘in-house’ EBS broker inflated site’s value

A DEVELOPER being pursued by the Educational Building Society over loans of €8.4 million has claimed the society got its own “in-house” broker to hugely inflate the value of a development site to e10m to ensure his loan application was successful.

The valuer was “fully dependent” on the EBS and had said he was told “from Dublin” to make the valuation, David Dempsey told the Commercial Court yesterday.

Mr Dempsey said the valuation “got me into this mess” and he “stupidly” relied on advice from EBS to “flip on” the site in Co Tipperary, which had an asking price of €6.6m, rather than build on it.