Mum of three loses battle for home

A SINGLE mother-of-three lost her battle to stay in her home after a court heard her estranged husband was living in Britain and ignoring mortgage payments.

The 40-year-old told the High Court yesterday she was upset and had been trying to contact her former partner about the huge sums now due to lender, Stepstone Mortgages.

They separated two years ago, a year after he had re-mortgaged the family home in Navan, Co Meath, in his name.

Judge Elizabeth Dunne was told how arrears on the original €220,000 mortgage had begun building just two months after the husband had got the loan in December 2008. Since the re-mortgaging of the home and break-up, he had left Ireland and gone to Britain and set up his own taxi company, the court heard.

“I have no means of paying the mortgage. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ve tried [to contact him], he won’t talk to me. We’ve been separated for two years,” the mother told the court.

The woman said she had lost her job as a personal assistant in late 2008 and was now studying at a Dublin college to be a social carer.

The mother, who has a daughter, 14, and two sons, aged nine and seven, added: “I have applied to the local council for housing for myself and the children but haven’t heard anything yet.”

The original 35-year mortgage had been agreed with Stepstone, with an interest rate of 9.3% and monthly repayments of €1,729.

But with arrears having mounted to over €45,000 and interest on top, the mortgage due now was over €273,000, some €53,000 more than the amount borrowed, the court heard.

Judge Dunne said she had little option but to grant the lender repossession of the Navan four-bedroomed property.

She put a stay of six months on the order as the woman’s daughter was studying for the Junior Certificate exams.

Speaking afterwards, the mother claimed she had never known her husband had re-mortgaged the property in the first place, which the couple and children had lived in since 2003.

Judge Dunne granted a total of seven repossession orders yesterday out of some 74 cases listed for hearing.

In another case, a construction worker was given more time to fight the repossession of his Dublin home.

The man, who had also tried to sell cattle to meet the mounting arrears on the loan, told the court how he and his wife had both recently lost their jobs.

Some €113,744 in arrears had mounted up and a total of €558,000 was now due on the loan with lender Start Mortgages.

“Things are getting worse and worse from a practical point of view,” Judge Dunne told the father-of-four.

She allowed time for the borrower to get files on the loan from the lender but added:

“Putting off the evil day is not going to help matters.”