A PROPERTY developer who has unsuccessfully tried to sell properties for more than two years to meet loan repayments is in the same situation as many people coming daily before the Commercial Court, a judge has remarked.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly yesterday said his experience of managing the Commercial Court was that trying to sell property now was a “very difficult exercise” with no indication of any improvement in the market in at least the next two years. Every day he was seeing people who were “very exposed” with “unsaleable properties” and no means of servicing loan.
In those circumstances, there was no point in deferring the judgment order in the hope things might improve.
He made the comments when granting judgment for €937,443 to ACCBank against Ron Quinn, a property developer, Gentian Hill, Salthill, Galway, arising from his failure to repay loans advanced from 2003 onwards.
The judge said he had sympathy for Mr Quinn, particularly as, unlike others, he had accepted he owed the money and had not sought to advance “spurious defences to put off the evil day”.
He also sympathised because Mr Quinn, on advice from ACC, had borrowed €100,000 from the bank to invest in a Solid World bond which was anticipated to yield a return of €140,000.
The bond had not performed, Mr Quinn had received only the €100,000 capital sum invested which he had had to pay to ACC and he had also paid interest of €20,000 and commission of €4,000 to the bank.
While he had no option but to enter judgment for the sum sought, Mr Justice Kelly placed a stay of three months to see if further talks between the sides could achieve anything. He was not optimistic in that regard.
ACC would be entitled to register mortgages over properties of Mr Quinn in the interim. He refused ACC’s applications for costs and directed each side to pay their own.
Earlier, Mr Quinn, representing himself, accepted he owed the money but argued that ACC had refused to make accommodations as to how the loans would be repaid. He had tried to sell some properties for about two years to meet loan repayments but had been unsuccessful and he also had difficulties getting tenants.
He had reached accommodations with other banks despite owing them “three times as much”, he added. Those banks had all tried to help him “out of this mess” but ACC had “turned its back on me”.
Bernard Dunleavy for ACC said the bank’s position was that Mr Quinn must clear interest arrears before it would consider other proposals but he “can’t or won’t”.
