THE HIGH Court has granted 10 orders of possession of homes and properties at its weekly chancery summonses hearing.
Almost 60 cases were listed before Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne yesterday in one of the busiest hearings of the year. Twenty-three were taken by Start Mortgages, which provides loans to people who have difficulty getting mortgages elsewhere.
Other banks seeking possession orders included IIB Homeloans, GE Capital Woodchester, ACC Bank, AIB, Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank, National Irish Bank, Irish Life and Permanent and Irish Nationwide.
Twelve new cases were listed.
Most cases were adjourned to give homeowners more time to pay their arrears or reach agreements with the lending institutions.
Just two property owners were in court to address the judge. Ms Justice Dunne heard a plea from one woman who urged against the granting of a possession order, claiming it would destroy her credit rating. She asked the judge if there was any way of avoiding the order.
The court heard she had arrears of more than €20,000 and had made no repayments since February 2007.
She was not living in the property and it had fallen into a bad state of disrepair after being vacated by students.
The woman told Ms Justice Dunne that she had secured tenants for the property and that she was expecting to receive a large sum of money from her sister in the coming days.
"If it goes to repossession, as bad as the damage now to my name is, in terms of credit, I'd be destroyed completely for life," th woman said.
Ms Justice Dunne said she understood the woman's difficulties but the case had been before the court on a number of occasions. She said that promises had been made to resolve the difficulties but nothing had happened.
She granted an order of possession to GE Capital Woodchester with a two-month stay and said she hoped the woman could resolve her difficulties before the two months elapsed.
In another case involving GE Capital Woodchester, Ms Justice Dunne said she would not grant an order of possession because the arrears were just €6,325.
The lender said it was seeking the order because the case had appeared on the court list seven times since 2006 and the arrears still had not been cleared.
Ms Justice Dunne asked the bank's legal team to write another "strenuous" letter to the homeowner and warned that the order would be granted if the owner did not take action.
Another property owner told Ms Justice Dunne that he was making strenuous efforts to tackle arrears of about €35,000.
He said he was trying to sell the house to buy a smaller one, in order to repay his debts to IIB Homeloans.
Ms Justice Dunne adjourned the case until January to give him more time to step up repayments.
In another IIB case, she granted a renewal of an order of execution which had been given in 2003. The balance outstanding was more than €250,000 and arrears totalled €82,000.
Ms Justice Dunne urged caution in a case involving a woman who was a nursing home resident.
Ms Jusitce Dunne adjourned the case for four weeks so that the woman's circumstances could be established.
