Costs awarded against couple over Dublin eviction

A couple who were evicted from their home in Carpenterstown, Dublin, were told today they would have to pay legal costs associated with delays in vacating the property.

Martin Coyne (72) and his wife Violet (62) were evicted from their rented home of 15 years in August, after ACC Bank repossessed the property from their landlord.

Ms Justice Jacqueline Linnane in the Circuit Civil Court said the couple had failed to comply with orders to vacate the rented house after it had been repossessed. She said their refusal to leave the property led to extra costs being incurred by the receiver.

She said the couple had also been in contempt of court for failure to comply with a court order to vacate the property, and noted the previous owner had seen his debt to the bank increase because of the delay.

Addressing the court, Mr Coyne said: “Is it all about costs? Is there no human side?”

Ms Coyne said: “We regret the circumstances under which we find ourselves. We are victims of a very bad system. We have been dehumanised, assaulted and robbed of personal and sentimental possessions, under the eyes of the bank, the receiver and its so-called 24 hour security”.

“We are most definitely objecting to costs,”she said.

She told the court the couple had been caught up in a financial row between the former owner and his bank which “wasn’t through our own doing”.

However, Ms Justice Linnane told the couple that in September 2013 the Private Residential Tenancies Board had determined the couple would have to leave the house.

She recalled she had enforced the board’s decision at a hearing in March 2014. This decision had then been unsuccessfully appealed to the High Court by the Coynes.

The matter had come back before Judge Linnane in June of this year and she recalled the couple “gave a sworn undertaking to the court that you would vacate the property by the 2nd of July, by which time you had not left”.

The Sheriff had then evicted the couple and Judge Linnane said she was now dealing with the receiver’s application for its legal costs.

Outside the court, the Coynes told reporters they were now living in Mullingar, which was the nearest place to their former home they could find within their budget and where rent allowance was accepted.

They had no family in Mullingar, their relatives and friends being back in Carpenterstown, they said.

Ms Coyne said the system had failed them and they called on the Government to bring in “a new system” to protect householders. There were many, many more people in their position, she added.

“We hope that the authorities, government, local councils and other state agencies urgently provide a better system of care for the citizens of the State who find themselves in the situation we have experienced,” she said.

Mr Coyne told reporters valuable fishing equipment and other property belonging to the couple was missing from the house when they went back to collect their possessions.

He estimated the costs would amount to about €5,000 but it did not matter “if they were a million”, as the couple could not afford to pay them, he said.

Speaking after the court case today, Ruth Coppinger TD said:“The Coynes have done us all a service by going public about their plight and challenging their eviction order. Repossessions are rising at an alarming rate. A whole number of other families have contacted with notices to quit.”

The Anti Austerity Alliance and Housing Action Group said repossessions should be outlawed and that people must stay in their homes and not make themselves homeless.