Man to sue bank for loss of marital consortium

A man who this week lost his €750,000 home for failing to keep up repayments on his loan, told a judge he was suing Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank for damages for loss of consortium with his late wife.

Patrick Cahill, of Grace Park Avenue, Drumcondra, Dublin, told Judge Jacqueline Linnane in the Circuit Civil Court that harassment of his late wife by the bank “had led to her suicide”.

Barrister Eithne Corry, counsel for the bank, told the court that bank officials, in sworn affidavits, had refuted Mr Cahill’s claims and allegations. Ms Corry, who appeared with Jonathan Finan, of Kane Tuohy Solicitors, said the bank had facilitated Mr Cahill with a €750,000 offer of a loan in 2006, and had given him a 25-year mortgage for that amount.

She told Judge Linnane that arrears in repayments had been consistent between October 2009 and June 2011. The last repayment had been in July 2013. Ms Corry said Mr Cahill, after correspondence, had been declared non co-operative by the bank in 2014, and a demand for repayment of the full debt had been made in June 2015.

Mr Cahill had raised three issues which the bank did not accept:

• It had no legal standing;
• There were questionable matters regarding the mortgage
• There were issues regarding the deponents who had sworn the affidavits on behalf of the bank.

Ms Corry said Mr Cahill had told the bank he had no problem making mortgage repayments to any entity that could show it had legal status in the matter. She said he had been paying off the mortgage for a considerable time before stopping.

She said he had also made allegations of fraud and misrepresentation against the bank, which officials who had dealt with mortgage details had described as “scandalous.” Counsel told the court that total arrears, as of November 22, stood at €159,500 and the balance due on the mortgage now stood at €780,300.

Judge Linnane said there had been no effort by Mr Cahill to engage with the bank and he had not disputed that he had made no payments since July, 2013. “The existence of High Court proceedings, which Mr Cahill has brought against the bank, including loss of consortium, in my view are not a bar to the bank exercising its rights under the mortgage, which Mr Cahill executed,” said Judge Linnane.

She said there had been various claims made in Mr Cahill’s affidavits, which had been opened to the court and none of which had been substantiated. The court was satisfied the bank’s papers were in order and accepted that none of the points in Mr Cahill’s affidavits established any defence to the bank’s claim for possession.