Pamela Flood, her husband Ronan Ryan and their family are still at risk this weekend of being put on the street by the Dublin City Sheriff after a High Court judge refused to grant them a stay against a vulture fund's legal permission to execute a repossession order against their home.
Ms Justice Carmel Stewart, after reading documents relating to the fund's three-year bid to take back the €900,000 property, said there was a lot of misleading information surrounding the matter. However, she "reluctantly" granted Flood and Ryan short service to seek a stay against a Circuit Court judge's order allowing their eviction.
The couple will next Thursday renew their application in front of another judge for a stay to allow them time to appeal the decision of Judge Jacqueline Linnane’s judgment in favour of Tanager Dac. This would allow the fund go ahead with re-possessing 136 Mount Prospect Avenue, Clontarf, where the couple and their four children reside.
In the repossession proceedings the Circuit Court has repeatedly heard of the failure of Mr Ryan, a restauranteur, to pay anything off his mortgage for up to nine years. Ms Flood, a former Miss Ireland and television presenter, was joined as a notice party to the proceedings following her marriage to Ryan.
Ross Maguire SC, for the couple, told Judge Stewart that on Thursday Judge Linnane had granted Tanager leave to execute a possession order she had made five months ago despite Ryan having secured a Protective Certificate in last-minute insolvency proceedings.
The Certificate purportedly grants an applicant for insolvency a 70-day period of protection against any creditor moving against them. Tanager had sought leave to execute its possession order despite the existence of the Protection Certificate which, it claimed, had been obtained in the absence of full disclosure of the existence of Judge Linnane’s order which had been consented to in March by both Ryan and Flood.
They had been granted a four month period to find alternative accommodation before having to vacate Mount Prospect Avenue on or before July 9th last. They sought insolvency protection and remain in the property.
Interfere
Mr Maguire, a director of New Beginning, had argued before Judge Linnane that she could not interfere with the Protective Certificate and that to do so would undermine the entire insolvency system. He also contended that the non-disclosure by Ryan of the existence of the consent possession order did not affect the Protective Certificate.
Judge Linnane said that granting of the Protective Certificate had resulted in the implementation of the consent order made by the court being frustrated and undermined.
She said there had been a deliberate move by Mr Ryan to frustrate and obstruct the implementation of the order and a conscious decision by him not to disclose to the insolvency judge the existence of the consent order.
Ryan, in an affidavit, told Judge Stewart on Friday that Judge Linnane had based her determination on a finding that the insolvency legislation had not been enacted to afford protection to a debtor who had made no mortgage for almost nine years and who had made a complete turn-around without disclosing relevant material facts.
He said he and his family now faced being evicted from their home despite having begun repaying his mortgage since March last.
Mr Maguire said that while Mr Ryan intended appealing Judge Linnane’s judgment it would be of little value if his home had already been taken from him.
Judge Stewart refused a temporary stay but allowed short service on Tanager of the couple’s intention to further seek a stay before another vacation judge next Thursday.