Lynn's firm in Portugal sold €12m worth of apartments

Kendar Portugal, the overseas property company owned by solicitor Michael Lynn, sold €12

Kendar Portugal, the overseas property company owned by solicitor Michael Lynn, sold €12.1 million worth of apartments to investors in a development it was building on the Algarve.

Records for Mr Lynn's company show that Kendar was forecasting a profit of €2.958 million from its Costa Cabanas development in the Portuguese fishing village of Cabanas, east of Faro. Mr Lynn gave Kendar Portugal a short-term interest-free loan of €3 million last January which was due to be repaid by the end of February, the company's accountant said in a loan declaration.

Mr Lynn's legal practice, Capel Law, was closed down by the Law Society on October 15th after it found he had used his client account for personal dealings. He owes as many as 13 financial institutions at least €70 million and had borrowed €26.3 million this year to buy properties.

Kendar was projecting total sales of €14.6 million from Costa Cabanas. This comprised €12.1 million in actual sales and €2.4 million in the estimated future sales of apartments, according to a Kendar trading statement provided to one of the Irish banks which lent money to Mr Lynn. The statement says apartments in Costa Cabanas sold for an average of €204,000 last year.

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The total expenditure on the first phase came to €11.65 million. This comprised construction costs of €6.8 million; sales and marketing costs of €621,000; Kendar's operating costs of €445,000 and external supplier costs of €284,000. The company also spent €3.5 million purchasing the site in Cabanas.

The Law Society was told last month that Mr Lynn's property firm had taken 220 deposits from Irish investors on overseas properties. Kendar was building 272 apartments and 10 houses at Cabanas, promising investors rental income of 5 per cent of the property price for five years.

Simon Carswell

Simon Carswell

Simon Carswell is News Editor of The Irish Times