TWO SUBSTANTIAL property developers in Galway have been ordered to pay some €6.9 million to ACCBank over unpaid loans given for development of a west of Ireland site.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly made the order yesterday against James and Tom Considine, with addresses at Ballagh, Bushypark, Galway, after being told they were offering no defence to the bank’s application.
He also refused their counsel’s application to defer the judgment order for a year to allow them to try and sell the development site at Deerpark, Headford, Co Galway, in what they hoped might then be a recovering market.
Opposing the stay, Rossa Fanning, for ACC, said the loan was due for repayment in August 2008 and the defendants had very substantial assets running into “hundreds of millions”.
In a statement of affairs, Tom Considine was said to have total net assets valued at some €201 million, while James Considine was described as having assets with an estimated value of €27.3 million and a total net equity of some €926,000.
The court was told Tom Considine was actively seeking investors from within and outside Ireland in a bid to raise capital to stabilise his asset portfolio and to allow properties be sold in a “recovering property market” rather than in this “distressed” market.
Mr Justice Kelly said ACC was seeking judgment for some €6.13 million, plus interest from August last, arising from a loan facility of December 2007 granted for a development of 120-residential units and a creche on the Deerpark site. Some €6.9 million was now due and owing.
The judge said a stay on the judgment order was being sought for a year to allow the defendants try and get investment to enable properties be sold in what they hoped would be a recovering property market.
Given the gloom in the property sector, he believed it was unlikely investors would be found.
He was also told the defendants had substantial assets and that there was no basis to deny ACC the judgment order sought, the judge said.
No doubt ACC was “alive to the commercial realities” but it was for the bank to decide if it would grant any leeway, Mr Justice Kelly added.
