Two men have consented to €1.7 million summary judgment being entered against them at the Commercial Court.
Robert Beattie, for Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank, sought the orders against Liam Hurley, Saval Park Road, Dalkey, and Denis English, Mapas Road, Dalkey, over unpaid loans issued in connection with four properties in Cork.
When the case came before the Commercial Court, Robert Dore, solicitor for the defendants, told Mr Justice Brian McGovern both were consenting to the case being transferred to the court’s list and to judgment for the €1.7m sum. The judge made those orders.
The bank’s application related to eight facilities issued on dates from 2002 to 2008 to assist in the purchase of Tuskar, Hartlands Avenue, Cork; two properties at Douglas Street, Cork; one property ar Margaret Street Cork; and equity release concerning all four properties.
In an affidavit, Stephen Healy, portfolio manager in the bank's arrears support unit, said the loans were buy-to-let type mortgage facilities provided on a tracker interest basis. He said the defendants told the bank in September 2012 they could only pay interest on the accounts and looked for a longer interest-only period to be provided.
The bank had given the defendants an opportunity to sell the properties with a view to reducing their liabilities but no offers were made on the properties in 2012, he said. When no progress was made in selling the properties, the bank initiated legal proceedings but put those on hold in 2013 and later discontinued them.
While interest only payments were made by the defendants up to the end of 2013, little or no payments were made this year, Mr Healy said. The bank in June 2014 indicated its intention to take proceedings and was unwilling to accept proposals advanced on behalf of the defendants.
Mr Healy said the bank last month rejected proposals advanced on behalf of the defendants to settle the legal proceedings on the basis those proposals were inconsistent with financial disclosure previously provided to the bank and its view the defendants had not satisfactorily outlined their financial circumstances.
The bank also “very recently” learned Mr Hurley’s wife had obtained planning permission last June for a second storey extension to the couple’s family home at Saval Park Road.
It was “very much regrettable” such details were not provided to the bank during the financial disclosure stage, he said.
In an email of September 2013, Mrs Hurley had expressed concern about the effect on her husband and family, and on Mr English, of the bank’s “bully boy” tactics and “constant harassment”.
“They are treating us like a bunch of criminals and want us to serve a life sentence,” she wrote. “We are having too many sleepless nights and this cannot go on.”
