Man vows to continue Citywest sit-in protest

A MAN who is staging a sit-in at an apartment in Dublin has said he will continue his protest until his mother is guaranteed ownership and the future of the development is clarified.

Thomas Bradshaw broke a window in a ground-floor suite of the Citywest Golf Hotel, next to the Citywest Hotel, Saggart, and moved in after his mother, Angela Bradshaw, was refused access to it although she pays a mortgage for it of €2,400 a month.

The development, built in 2002 by businessman Jim Mansfield, was marketed as a leaseback arrangement.

Investor owners could buy the suites and then lease them back to Mr Mansfield. There was a guaranteed rent return of about €800 a month for seven years, with an option for a further 14 years. Investors also received a tax break.

Some 140 suites were sold at a total cost of €52 million. The golf hotel was run by HSS, which controls the Citywest complex and the rent payments were met for the first few years. Property management company, Capitacorp, run by Jack Kinnerk, managed and dispersed the rent to investors.

After five years, financial difficulties with HSS meant the rent ceased. Investors were then told, in February 2010, that Mr Mansfield had secured a five-year deal with the ministry of higher education in Saudi Arabia and that 750 students would be accommodated in the golf hotel while they studied English in Ireland.

The Saudi ministry later denied any deal had been agreed, saying it was “far from real”.

Then in July last year, Bank of Scotland appointed Martin Ferris as receiver to HSS, which owed the bank €170 million. It is understood rent of €1.2 million was also owed by HSS to the investors.

Complications from the receivership meant investors have been denied access to their properties, making it impossible for them to occupy them, convert them into apartments or rent them out.

At least half a dozen of the suites have been repossessed by banks after owners failed to meet their repayments.

Yesterday, Mr Bradshaw said he would continue to occupy his mother’s suite for months if necessary until ownership issues were sorted out and the future of the development was settled.

His brother, Peter, said if their mother, who owns a number of other investment properties, did not begin to collect rent for the Citywest suite soon she would lose all of her properties including her own home. “We just want them to say they will leave us alone and let us get on with it,” he said.