Judge orders repossession of record number of homes

A RECORD number of home repossessions were granted in the High Court yesterday with the presiding judge green-lighting the repossession of 18 properties.

Repossession orders were granted where houses had been left abandoned and vacant and others where the owners, who had run up huge arrears, could not be contacted.

A total 76 cases were listed in the court for the day.

In one case a couple who both worked as taxi drivers informed the court they were struggling to meet their agreed repayments with Stepstone Mortgage Funding.

The mother in question told the court she was just trying to keep their three small children in school and did not want to agree to repayments with the lender that were too high for the couple.

Judge Elizabeth Dunne said it was very important the couple kept up their repayments otherwise they would be in a “hopeless” situation.

“You’re obviously doing your best at the moment,” said the judge, adding that she would give them a “little bit of a break” to get back on their feet.

In another case, an Offaly man had made efforts to get work resurfacing roads, but despite selling off some lands and proposing to develop other lands, he was facing arrears of over €28,000 with IIB Homeloans for a mortgage of nearly €250,000.

The investment property was unoccupied, the court heard. Judge Dunne granted a four-month stay on the possession order.

Several properties where possession orders were granted had been empty for months. In Cavan, neighbours had told investigators for Start Mortgages nobody had lived in the home since April. The borrower owed over €22,000 in arrears on a loan of €205,000 taken out in 2006. No money had been paid since mid-2008 and there had been no forwarding address for the borrower.

In another possession case granted, a man facing arrears of nearly €24,000 for a home in Leitrim was leaving Ireland for work reasons. He had not paid Ulster Bank mortgage repayments on the €172,000 loan since July 2007 and could not be contacted.

A further case heard how the Irish home of a financial trader living in London had been left vacant, the gardens left overgrown and the property vandalised when a fire was started. The male borrower had left Ireland two years ago and arrears with Springboard Mortgages had mounted since July 2008.

A son told how he could not meet the mortgage payments for a home left to him by his father who had died of a heart attack. But the father’s insurance had been made void due to a medication issue and the family home now faced being repossessed. The son said the family had expected to pay the arrears with the insurance money but he was now unemployed as was his brother. The last payment on the home had been in May 2006.

Judge Dunne gave the man until February next year to look at either selling the home or finding a way of meeting the repayments.