A burgeoning Irish property empire headed by a controversial landlord who evicted tenants and put their flats on Airbnb leads back to this neat family home on an unassuming suburban street in Luxembourg.
Through a confusing constellation of Irish companies, landlord Marc Godart (34) manages a vast property portfolio encompassing flats in Borrisokane, land in Mangan and a range of Dublin properties including Reuben House, the apartment block from which tenants were evicted last year only to see their old rooms go up on Airbnb without planning permission not long after.
But one address occurs again and again in the company records as the headquarters of the various companies that own Godart’s firms or provide them with cash.
It’s this red-tiled cottage with a neat lawn in front, where I find Marc Godart’s father, René, sweeping the driveway.
The railway worker and the web of companies
Born where the western tip of landlocked Luxembourg meets Belgium and France, René Godart was a 48-year-old employee of the Luxembourg train company CFL when he established Marede Sci as a real-estate company in March 2001.
He took a majority stake in the fledgling firm and was allocated 51 shares while his wife Denise Wester, who was represented through power of attorney, was granted 49.
Marede Sci was to be the first of a string of companies registered to their comfortable cottage home in the Luxembourg district of Hesperange, which has developed over the years into a wealthy suburb of the capital that retains some rural charm.
A respectable local figure, René is the vice-president of a tourism syndicate dedicated to promoting the town campsite to visitors as a “haven of peace” amid nature close to Luxembourg city.
His son Marc was born in 1989.
Alongside the Godart-Wester surnames, the family postbox bears the titles of the various companies associated with this address which hold interests in property in Ireland and beyond: Itzig Sarl, Syren SA and Hesper SA.
What seem like random, anonymous names for companies in an Irish context suddenly come to make sense when walking the nearby streets.
Itzig is the name of a neighbouring village and the road that leads to it. A few paces away, Rue de Syren runs to the village of Syren off to the east.
Denise, from a local farming family made prominent when one of its members found love on a reality television show, was described as a housewife and her name given as Godart-Wester when she cofounded Hesper SA with René in 2001, equally splitting the shares 50/50.
The name they chose then appears to take after another local road name and the encompassing municipality of Hesperange or, as it’s called in the family’s native Luxembourgish, Hesper.
[ Landlord used rooms for Airbnb with tenants still in houseOpens in new window ]
The young scion
Marc Godart was still a student when he was first named to a company role in family business Hesper SA in the summer of 2007, not long after his 18th birthday.
Marc Godart’s LinkedIn profile suggests he began his university studies the following year at the University of Luxembourg, before switching to study economics at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. A student magazine shows him, then aged 23, earnestly dressed in a grey suit taking part in an event for undergraduates interested in finance.
A fellow alumnus described the finance club students as an “eager and ambitious” crowd who were focused on getting hands-on business experience alongside their studies.
Annual accounts suggest Marc Godart already had an in. In 2011 he was listed as the auditor of the annual accounts of Hesper SA. Its board of directors were listed as Denise Godart-Wester, Robert Godart, and Marede Sci, with assets of €1.5 million. Denise Godart-Wester was stated to have lent the firm €316,402.40.
When Ireland experienced its profound housing crash in the wake of the global financial crisis, the family heard through an Irish acquaintance that there might be good opportunities to buy.
This was a time when hundreds of distressed Irish properties were being sold at once in mass auctions at severe discounts to their previously estimated value, drawing in international investors attracted by slashed stamp duty rates. An apartment in Temple Bar was listed with a reserve price of €80,000 at one auction in 2011; a four-bed mews house in Ballsbridge sold for €550,000.
“It was like the Klondike gold rush. The Americans bought, private people, hedge funds,” one international investor recalls of the time. “In Ireland nobody could buy, because the banks were not giving out any loans.”
Marc Godart had done an internship and briefly worked at a Luxembourg embassy before he founded ‘GL Invest’ in Dublin 2014, according to his profile.
After pursuing a PhD qualification in Maastricht, over time he increasingly took charge of the family’s Irish investments from his father, continuing to accumulate properties.
“I asked him: where are you getting all this money? Because I knew he was buying all these properties – I asked him is it institutional money or family money,” a person who knew him recalls.
“And he said: it’s family money.”
Green Label Property Investment Limited, an Irish-registered company which lists Marc Godart and Denise Godart as its directors, was established in 2014. It declared Hesper SA as its “parent company” in its most recent accounts.
Those who met him in Dublin described him as a personable young guy with interests in music and an academic bent, conversant in several languages and with an unplaceable accent in English. He lives the life of a digital nomad while in Ireland, operating out of a co-working space in central Dublin, while maintaining his Luxembourg family home as the address used for his company positions as director.
The assets of Hesper SA grew from €1.5 million in 2011 to €4.3 million in 2021, according to filed accounts.
Some who know him credit the dogged manner in which Marc Godart built and maximised his Irish property portfolio to his academic background in financial engineering.
“His decisions... they’re financial,” one said. “The output of that could appear to be cruel to a tenant, but it’s probably a very clinical business decision.”
Trouble with tenants
Marc Godart wasn’t long in Ireland when he began to be named as a party in property-related disputes.
In 2014 he secured a High Court injunction to prevent an anti-repossession activist entering the premises of a property he and two other Luxembourg-based individuals had bought on Merrion Square. The following year he was named as a party in a bitter dispute with another tenant that was heard by the Private Residential Tenancies Board.
In 2020, Marc Godart featured in an RTÉ Prime Time report that highlighted overcrowded housing during the pandemic. It revealed that an agent from Green Label Properties, who demanded cash payment without giving a receipt, had shown reporters a flat with just one toilet that would be shared by 12 people when full.
Records of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) show Marc Godart and a company of which he is a director, Green Label Short Lets Ltd, have been involved in various disputes with tenants. Tenants have told of abrupt evictions in which their belongings were packed up in their absence.
In 2022, tenants of Marc Godart complained that their north Dublin mid-terrace home had been put on Airbnb while they were still living there, with visitors arriving unannounced, cooking and doing laundry while they paid the utility bills. They were evicted before their case could be heard by the RTB.
The same year, tenants of Reuben House, a multistorey apartment building in Dolphin’s Barn where bunk beds were packed four to a room, were issued notices of eviction by Green Label Properties and were informed that the landlord intended to sell the building.
Evicted tenants of Reuben House subsequently saw their old rooms appear on Airbnb, though no planning permission had been granted. Reuben Street Hot Desks Ltd, registered in 2019 with Marc Godart and Denise Wester as directors, applied to Dublin City Council for permission to convert Reuben House into an aparthotel in March.
Reuben Hot Desks Ltd is owned by Itzig Sarl, one of the companies registered to the same Luxembourg family home. Last year, Marc Godart ceded his stake in this company, leaving the ownership of Itzig equally split between René Godart and Denise Wester.
Though Denise Godart’s name appears repeatedly as a director of various companies, those familiar with the family describe her as having little hand in the active running of the businesses and leaving matters to her husband and son.
Concerns about Marc’s business dealings are brushed off. “The mother won’t listen,” a Luxembourg acquaintance said. “He’s the only son - he can do no wrong.”
But among others, news about the conditions in his flats in Dublin has raised eyebrows.
“They’re probably stricter about these bunk beds [in Luxembourg] than they are in Ireland,” another person who knows the family said.
A complex web
Over the years, the family business operations developed into a complex international web.
In 2019 Marc Godart became the director and shareholder of the Maltese-founded Green Label Finance Corp Ltd; René Godart was listed as the company secretary.
Its interests again point to Ireland: Cashel Lettings Ltd, a company of which Marc Godart is a director and which is registered to Reuben House and owns a property on Main Street, Cashel, Co Tipperary, owed €236,000 to the “connected party” Green Label Finance Corp Ltd in 2020, the latest accounts show.
Likewise, Hesper SA was the source of the funding for Green Label Property Investment Limited’s purchase of retail units at The Foundry, St Judes, Railway Street/Beaver Street, Dublin 1, according to its 2020 accounts, through an “interest-free loan”.
It declared €298,410 in director’s remuneration for Marc Godart for the 2020 year and stated that it held €2.7 million in investment properties and that it owed just over €2 million to “group companies” in interest-free loans. It posted a loss in both 2019 and 2020.
In August 2022, Marc Godart became the director of a British company, Limehouse Car Park Co Ltd. Three weeks later, the company filed statements to say that René Godart was relinquishing his control of the company and Syren SA was taking a controlling stake.
The sole administrator of Syren SA is René Godart, according to filings in Luxembourg; its assets amounted to €777,395.61 in 2021, the bulk of it in money owed. Again, it is registered to the Luxembourg home address.
The company name that Marc Godart used when he registered to attend the high-flying international real-estate conference Mipim in Cannes last month was GL Real Invest Ltd, attendance records suggest.
Marc Godart is known to work as a letting agent for others as well as for his own property. As of today ‘Marc’ of Green Label Properties, listed with the phone number that Marc Godart has previously provided to tenants and journalists, is advertising 13 commercial properties for rent on Daft.ie ranging from Cleary’s pub in Inchicore to a cafe in Dolphin’s Barn and a beauty salon space on Westmoreland Street.
He is a director or secretary of some 56 Irish companies, according to Companies House records.
‘Ask my son’
Dressed in a denim shirt and jeans, René Godart’s initial friendliness dissipates as I explain I am a journalist seeking to understand more about his investments in Ireland.
“I’m not interested,” the grey-haired 70-year-old says with a wave of his hand. “No, no, no. Ask my son, he’s in Ireland, not me.”
Asked about payments that tenants say Marc Godart still owes them due to rulings in their favour by the RTB, Mr Godart says he is aware of the situation but not the right person to ask.
“Yes, I know all. You ask my son. He knows everything,” he says. He declined to answer questions as to whether the Airbnb lettings at Reuben House, which are subject to enforcement proceedings by Dublin City Council due to a lack of planning permission, would be regularised.
“Unbelievable,” Mr Godart muttered as he retreated into his garage. “You come from Ireland to talk to me... crazy.” He pressed a button and the garage door descended. “Bye bye.”
A list of questions left in the letter box for him and Denise Godart/Wester did not receive a response.
Calls to Marc Godart’s phone were unanswered.
There was no letterbox or doorbell at an address for Robert Joseph Godart, who is listed as a former director of Hesper SA and as holding roles at various companies over the years including Luxago Sarl and Real Estate International SA. An alternative address appeared to be a building site.
A property close to René Godart’s birthplace by the French and Belgian border, given as the address of Hélène Godart-Wendel when she was registered as a company administrator of Hesper SA the year of its foundation, bore the name “Marc Godart” on its letterbox and doorbell when visited by The Irish Times.
The company name Lodu Sarl was also posted on its letterbox – a company registered to René Godart. A builder answered the door and said that questions should be directed to the owner. “His name is René.”
Why Luxembourg?
Walking around the streets of Hesperange, it’s common to see postboxes outside quiet domestic buildings or apartment blocks that bear the names of multiple companies that are registered there, without much evidence of business activities taking place.
Luxembourg – like Ireland – has a history of being used by international companies for aggressive tax-planning purposes.
Corporations that have bases in more than one country can shop around for differences in national rules to reduce the amount of tax they have to pay – sometimes dramatically – perfectly legally, but not always ethically.
In recent years, real-estate companies based in Luxembourg that own large property holdings in Berlin became the subject of controversy amid the ongoing housing crisis in the German capital.
There, large institutional investors were blamed for rents and purchase prices that have soared since the global financial crisis, as the construction of homes failed to keep up with demand.
The International Rent Index found rents of newly-advertised properties in Berlin rose 39.5 per cent in a single year in 2021. That autumn, residents voted in favour of the idea of appropriating properties from landlords who own 3,000 apartments or more, reflecting public support for drastic measures – though it is unclear whether it will ever be put into action.
At the time, the tax justice researcher Christoph Trautvetter highlighted, in a series of reports, the role of Luxembourg in reducing tax liabilities for real-estate companies that owned large holdings in Berlin.
The method used to reduce taxes due was through intercompany lending. An entity in Luxembourg would lend money to a linked entity elsewhere, which could then write off the interest payments on the loan so that no corporation tax on profits was due in the jurisdiction where it operated. Profits could then be shifted on further to another linked entity in a low-tax offshore destination, such as the Cayman Islands.
This method was highlighted in the LuxLeaks reporting of 2014 when outlets including The Irish Times revealed how major multinational companies used Luxembourg’s rules to reduce their tax bill, thanks to whistleblowers who later faced prosecution in the Grand Duchy.
The revelations inspired the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) reforms and the international move to impose a global minimum corporate tax rate, and Luxembourg implemented reforms. But tax researchers say corporations can still find advantages in the current rules.
The company filings of the Godart-Wester group of companies do not suggest that such a method is in use. For one thing, the sums of money involved are small – revenues and assets go into the millions at most, and the corporations that use that structure have revenues on a far greater scale.
But perhaps more significantly, the loans from the Hesper SA in Luxembourg to Green Label Property Investment Limited is marked down in the accounts as “interest free”.
But company structures involving family members as shareholders are commonly used in Luxembourg to avoid inheritance tax liabilities for assets held outside the country.
The family’s establishment of Green Label Finance Corp in Malta may offer some tax benefits, too.
Malta is advertised as an attractive jurisdiction for tax purposes by multiple law firms online, who tell overseas investors that if they establish a Maltese company they can use a variety of tax credits, exemptions and refunds to reduce their effective corporation tax rate to 5 per cent.
The Godart-Wester family did not answer queries as to what is the source of their funding for their property interests in Ireland.
It is not unheard of for Luxembourgish families to develop substantial property portfolios simply through the accumulation of private wealth. Luxembourg is the richest country in the world by some measures. Salaries, even for unassuming jobs, can be substantial. And crucially, any land or property sold in Luxembourg would go significantly further in Ireland.
The average price of land in Hesperange was more than €100,000 an acre between 2015 and 2017; in Ireland the price per acre averaged €8,750 when the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers first began to issue a report on it in 2016.
The average price of a house in the Luxembourg canton where Hesperange is located was €1,450,000 in 2021, while in Dublin it was €427,000, according to Daft.ie.
When Marc Godart was born in 1989, green fields stretched around the family home and sheep grazed nearby.
The street is now nearly unrecognisable: the lots around the house are filled in with newer-built homes and apartments with ground floor retail space, stretching down to the village main street.
This local development boom, now cooling off in Luxembourg as higher interest rates bite, provides the answer to where the family’s wealth comes from, locals say.
“The grandparents used to have a farm in the middle of the village there, and that’s why they got into building, zoning land,” an acquaintance said. “They were farmers and then they became building developers.”
