Indebted pensioner says Anglo mortgage given without checks

A MAN WHO lost his “pension” property to Anglo Irish Bank has told the High Court that all he had to do was “phone them and they obliged”. The man told Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne yesterday that loans were “given freely” by the lender with no feasibility study.

He borrowed €685,000 in 2007 from the bank and secured the loan on an investment property at Roebuck Castle, Clonskeagh, Dublin, which he intended to use as a pension.

The collapse of the banks forced him to put his businesses into receivership, he said. He had incurred substantial debts and suffered a heart attack. He also said his wife of 42 years suffered from manic depression and “sold other items” without his knowledge.

The property had been valued recently at €400,000, but he was hoping to wait until the Government brought forward some solutions “to the appalling situation” he found himself in before actively trying to sell it. He was living on a State pension, he said.

Counsel for the lender said the man now owed in excess of €720,000 on the property and “hadn’t discharged a penny” since 2008. He had offered the bank €500 a month in repayments, but he was receiving €1,200 in rent from tenants at the property.

The judge said there were many people in the borrower’s position who would like to see what the Government would do before dealing with their financial difficulties, but the longer the matter was delayed, the greater the interest accruing.

She granted the order for possession with a stay of execution for eight months to allow the property to be put on the market in spring or early summer.

The court also saw cases yesterday where repayment arrangements set up for borrowers who had fallen into arrears two or three years ago had collapsed

Granting the orders on the homes, Ms Justice Dunne gave stays of execution of between six and nine months in acknowledgment of the efforts borrowers had made. Two orders were also renewed yesterday for properties due to be repossessed by Start Mortgages Ltd in 2008 and 2010.