Galway Bay fm newsroom – The High Court has ruled that the family home and farm of a Galway couple is not protected from a bank’s efforts to recover a debt of more than 5 and a half million euro.
Justice Caroline Costello said that AIB is entitled to an order which adjudicated that Michael and Mary Hoare, Circular Road, Bushypark were bankrupt.
The High Court judge rejected a claim by Michael and Mary Hoare that AIB had loaned them money on the assurance that their home in Bushypark and a family farm in Moylough would be left out of any deal to recover debt.
Between 2004 and 2010, the couple were advanced 7 loan facilities to buy and renovate homes in the city to let to students.
According to today’s Irish Times, the loans were also given towards Michael Hoare’s construction company, Dangan Homes.
That company built houses in Moylough, Mountbellew and Upper Newcastle in the city.
In 2012, AIB secured a High Court judgement against the couple for about 5.6 million euro and issued bankruptcy proceedings last year.
The couple opposed the inclusion of the family home and Moylough farm in the bankruptcy proceedings claiming they were assured they would be ‘off the table’.
The Hoares’ former solicitor had stated that AIB promised it would not pursue the family home or farm.
However Justice Caroline Costello ruled that the evidence by the former solicitor and the Hoares’ local bank official was ‘extremely general’ and therefore the properties were not protected.
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