Repo orders ‘backed up for months’

A county registrar has revealed that court sittings to address repossession orders in Donegal are already backed up for of months.

A total of 271 cases were yesterday listed for hearing at the registrar’s court in Letterkenny. However, after taking more than two hours just to read through the list, 189 of these cases were adjourned to court sittings in June, July, and September.

The other 82 cases were listed as ready to go ahead. However, registrar Geraldine O’Connor only managed to get through a number of the cases despite sitting after normal sitting hours.

Among the cases heard, Ms O’Connor refused to grant repossession of a family home in north Donegal as an up-to-date statement of arrears to Ulster Bank was not available to the court. She did grant the repossession of a site near Culdaff which has a caravan there. No figures were given on arrears in the case but a solicitor for Ulster Bank said the motion had been served on the mortgage holder in England. No payments had been made since 2009.

Ms O’Connor refused repossession in another case because the statement of arrears was not up to date.

In another case, solicitor Kieran O’Gorman asked for an adjournment involving a couple with six children, saying they had been trying to engage with the bank.

Niall Sheridan, representing EBS, said his instructions were that there had been no constructive engagement. The last payment made, he said, was €100 on February 4, but that arrears for this year alone was more than €2,000.

The registrar adjourned the case until July to allow the couple time to file a returning affidavit.