More than 16 years after his multimillion-euro property dealings first came to light, the former solicitor, Michael Lynn, has been sentenced to 5½ years for stealing almost €18 million from his lenders.
Understandably, most of the media reporting has focused on the banks and other financial institutions he borrowed from. Little has been reported on the impact of Lynn’s nefarious activities on the people who unwittingly found themselves caught up in any of his property deals.
Unfortunately, I happen to be one of those people. Michael Lynn was the buyer of my house back in March 2007, when at that time, the estate agent informed me he was in the process of purchasing 27 properties through them. News of his fraudulent activity had not yet emerged. The story had yet to break.
My sale was due to close in late March 2007 and on the night before the closure, my solicitor informed me that Lynn “was not in funds”. He had a month to close the deal.
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Lynn’s failure to close would have led him to lose his deposit. I spent an exceedingly stressful month waiting for updates, as if he failed to close the deal, I would have had to forfeit the deposit on my new home. The value of my deposit exceeded the value of my mortgage on the home I was selling, so it represented a very significant financial risk to me.
I also recall pleading with my own solicitor to advocate on my behalf with Lynn, whose offices were ironically located in the same building as my solicitor’s office.
Finally, on the last day of that month, Lynn paid up so that we could close the house sale in late April 2007. That meant that I could then proceed to close the purchase of the house I was buying too.
Some time after, the story broke of Lynn’s illegal financial transactions. I was one of the lucky ones in that my house sale went through and I was only out of pocket by a few thousand euro (cancelled movers and other costs). The fraud squad visited me the following year, to add my experience to the record.
It was an incredibly stressful time. As a seller, I was completely powerless. If the same thing were to happen today, I’m not aware of any legislative protections introduced in the interim that would change that.
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