AN APPLICATION to repossess the home of a consultant cardiologist has been refused at Limerick Circuit Court because the lender did not operate within Code of Conduct in issuing legal proceedings.
Syed Abbas, a cardiologist at University Hospital Limerick who also runs a private practice, was responding to a repossession application by Stepstone Mortgages over “periodic defaulting” on a loan drawn down in 2009.
The court heard that Dr Abbas was €115,959 in arrears on mortgage repayments for his family home at Woodvilla Lodge, Lacca, Castleconnell and had a total loan of €688,231 outstanding with Stepstone.
Counsel for the lender said that Dr Abbas “periodically defaulted on his €3,453 monthly repayments and the last payment received was for €2,700 in November 2015.
Stepstone applied for immediate vacant possession of the house.
Objecting to the application, Maurice Lyons, solicitor for Dr Abbas, said that the lender did not adhere to the code of conduct with regard to lending, assessment, debt resolution and the three-month moratorium before legal proceedings could be issued.
He argued that the Standard Financial Statements (SFS) had an error relating to the monthly income and therefore the repayment assessment carried out by Stepstone was “flawed”.
Under the Code of Conduct for lending, SFSs must be filled out by the borrower so the lender can determine their repayment capacity.
In the last set of statements filed, Dr Abbas stated that his net monthly income at €6,360, but an additional €2,400 generated from private practice was not included in the right section of the form.
It was also argued that other errors “incorrectly indicated” that Dr Abbas could not repay the debt.
After Stepstone informed Dr Abbas that they were withdrawing from the debt resolution process, they issued legal proceedings within the three-month moratorium that should have been applied and without giving him the right of appeal.
Mr Lyons said Stepstone’s actions were “fundamentally wrong and outrageous”.
After submitting his SFS forms, Dr Abbas started to repay the mortgage but stopped when they instituted legal proceedings against him.
“We are happy to sit down again and negotiate with the bank again, but it’s clear they were playing ducks and drakes”, Mr Lyons claimed.
Refusing the application by Stepstone, Judge Francis Comerford said that the “borrower has a substantial amount of money coming in every month which is well above the amount repayable.
“A high income earner filing the wrong set of figures, is enough to satisfy me that the assessment wasn’t justified. It is also clear that the proceedings issued before the moratorium ceased and therefore I am striking out the application on that basis,” he said.
