EIGHT ORDERS for possession of property were granted at the High Court yesterday, including one against a solicitor who claimed her signature was forged on a loan application.
Counsel for Ulster Bank told Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne it was seeking an order for possession of an apartment at Grand Canal Dock owned by a solicitor who owed almost €1.8 million.
She had made only one payment of just over €14,000 on the debt in 2009, and during separate legal proceedings had claimed she was “a conduit” for her father, and had been borrowing the money on his behalf.
She subsequently told gardaí in Dundalk that she was a victim of fraud and swore on affidavit that the signature on the loan application had been forged and that she was “a stranger” to the transaction.
Counsel for the lender said it was “inconceivable” that she could claim to be a victim of fraud since she had lived in the property, had made some payment and had also collected rent from it.
Counsel for the solicitor said it had taken his client “a considerable amount of soul-searching” to make allegations against her father and she had been reluctant to do so.
Asked by the judge why, if she had nothing to do with the transaction, she didn’t simply hand back the keys, counsel said she thought the Law Society would look badly on an order for possession against her. Ms Justice Dunne questioned why in her affidavit the solicitor had failed to mention previous legal proceedings she had been involved in. There had been “no degree of openness, frankness, good faith or putting her cards on the table”, she said.
“I cannot at all understand why she is here at all defending these proceedings.”
She granted the order with a stay, or delay of execution, of four months to facilitate the tenants.
She adjourned an application for an order for possession taken by Stepstone Mortgages against a couple who owed almost €31,000 in arrears after hearing that the woman had died in March.
Counsel for the lender said the couple’s life insurance policy had lapsed within a month of the draw- down of the loan in October 2007.
The judge instructed the lender to write to the husband “given the very tragic circumstances” and give him one more opportunity to put forward proposals.
“I just think in the circumstances it takes people time to come to terms with such difficulties,” she said.
She also refused to grant an order to Stepstone after hearing a couple had kept up repayments of €500 a week since February on a mortgage that had accumulated arrears of almost €65,000.
Counsel for the lender said it would take the couple 49½ years to clear the arrears, but Ms Justice Dunne instructed the lender to write again to the borrowers and allow them another opportunity to deal with the arrears.
The judge also adjourned eight cases to a hearing at the end of June on the basis that they were taken in 2010 and so may have been required to be issued under the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009, instead of under older legislation.
