Cavan has highest rate of repossessions

In this region, Cavan had the highest rate of repossession orders granted to banks last year, at 34 properties, many of them family homes, and that figure looks set to rise dramatically in the year ahead judging from the number of such applications already listed before the local courts.
Almost 90% of all cases at a recent hearing of the Civil Motions list before the Cavan County Registrar at Cavan Circuit Court involved property-related cases, many of which were applications for possession orders.
Cavan, also having recently been revealed as the county with the second highest level of mortgages in arrears in the country, had several cases before the local sitting earlier this month.
They saw sums of almost €200,000 owed, while in one case no repayments had been made since 2008.
In two cases heard by County Registrar Joe Smith, proceedings were taken against individuals living outside of the jurisdiction; while one case opened up a debate over the mis-selling by a financial institution of mortgage insurance to a customer.
Also present at the motions hearing was Ben Gilroy of Direct Democracy Ireland and several others like him who were prepared, as he put it “to fight the case of the people in trouble against the corruption of the banks”.

Seventeen per cent of mortgages in arrears
According to the Central Bank, by June of last year, 17 per cent of mortgages issued to persons in County Cavan were in arrears.
In the same year, a total of 34 properties in the county were taken possession of by the banks, the highest number of orders granted in the Border-north Midlands region.
Between January and August 2014, a total of 10 residential properties had orders of possession granted against them, with six further non-residential properties also taken control of by the banks.
From September onwards, the Court Service give further detail, with seven more properties considered as the person’s 'primary home’, eight 'buy to let’ and one classified as 'other’ seized up to the end of the year.

Working with PIPs
Cavan Circuit Court last week heard in relation to a number of cases where the persons involved had been strident in their attempts to meet some form of compromise with the banks involved, some of whom had abandoned the property, whereas others were working with Personal Insolvency Practitioners (PIPs) in the hope of finding a solution.

'Cannot Cope’
Already, nationally lenders have taken possession of 281 residential properties so far this year, with growing claims that the court system “cannot cope” with the amount of home repossessions it has to deal with.
The amount of homes, as distinct from buy to let properties, repossessed by banks climbed to 1,116 at the end of the first quarter, up from 1,014 at the end of 2013.
By comparison, in neighbouring counties, there were 21 repossession court orders granted in Leitrim in 2014 and 17 in Monaghan.
In total, nationally banks, building societies and other lenders lodged more than 8,000 civil bills applying for possession of properties in the regional circuit courts last year, with most of them for houses and apartments, including family homes with distressed mortgages.
Speaking in the Seanad, Senator Thomas Byrne from neighbouring Co Meath criticised the fact that 84 repossession cases were listed to be heard by a county registrar in Meath recently.
The Fianna Fáil Senator said his problem is “not out of disrespect for individual country registrars”, but because he thinks it is “completely wrong” such cases are not presided over by a sitting judge.