Permanent to check out `overcharging'

The Irish Permanent is to check 43 mortgage accounts which share characteristics with that of a Dublin couple who were overcharged for two years.

The 43 accounts are all former endowment mortgages which, following difficulties, were changed to annuity mortgages. The change involved a manual correction, and it is at this point that the Dublin couple's mortgage had an incorrect interest rate applied, according to a spokesman for the lending company.

Whether any of the 43 accounts were wrongly handled will be known early next week, the spokesman said. Irish Permanent has adjusted its system to guard against mistakes being made in the future.

In the Circuit Civil Court on Thursday Judge Raymond Groarke praised Mr Philip and Mrs Marie Eustace, of St Maelruan's Park, Tallaght, for "taking on" the Irish Permanent and checking their mortgage interest charges. The couple's solicitors, Brian Morton and Co, discovered the couple were being charged a fixed rate of 9.5 per cent when the rates should have varied between 6.75 to 7.5 per cent, between 1996 and 1998.

Judge Groarke dismissed an application from Irish Permanent to repossess the couple's home, as demands were made and proceedings instituted for sums which were in doubt. He awarded cost against the company.