Wallace granted one more Christmas in Clontarf home
WEXFORD MEP Mick Wallace has vowed to hand the keys to his Clontarf home over to Allied Irish Mortgage Bank in March of next year if he’s allowed to spend Christmas there.
Wallace’s lawyers phoned their client after Judge Jacqueline Linnane told them that if he wanted a stay to celebrate Christmas in the house they would have to ring him and see if he was prepared to co-operate with the bank and hand back the keys.
He told them he was and was granted a stay on the possession order for three months.
The bank is seeking possession of Wallace’s Dublin home at 13 Clontarf Road, Dublin 3 on which he owes more than €900,000 after having failed to keep up his monthly instalments of €2,270 on a €825,000 loan.
A short time before this, Judge Linnane was told that three years ago the MEP had allegedly given the ultimatum that he would burn the house to the ground or be carried out of it in a coffin, withdrawing all cooperation.
Barrister Jack Tchrakian told the Judge that ‘people say things in stressful situations’ and said that Mr Wallace would be disputing the remarks attributed to him by a bank official in a sworn affidavit.
He said he had later clarified what he believed he had said in the phone call. Judge Linnane said it was obvious that in his dealings with the bank Mr Wallace had got quite agitated.
Referencing a photograph that had been posted on social media in advance of the by-election in Wexford for his vacant Dáil seat, Judge Linnane asked if Mr Wallace had a home in Strasbourg, saying she had seen a photograph of him sitting having a drink on a balcony in the shade ‘somewhere in Europe, certainly warmer than here’.
After granting the bank possession of Wallace’s Clontarf home the judge was asked for a three months stay on the order and insisted on him being phoned to see if he had changed his tune and would hand back the keys. Judge Linnane, granting the bank an order for possession of the property said the evidence was clear that he had defaulted on repayments on the €825,000 mortgage he had used to purchase No 13 Clontarf Road.
She said the High Court had been told in the bankruptcy proceedings that he owed €30million in secured and unsecured debts to creditors and had accepted the default situation regarding his Clontarf loan. She said the Clontarf property was now in negative equity.
Arrears now totalled €111,258.61 and the overall debt to the bank was €955,044. She awarded costs against Wallace saying he had contributed to the legal costs bill by refusing to co-operate with the bank and had told them he would fight them tooth and nail until the end.
Judge Linnane also criticised Wallace for having recently sworn an affidavit over the phone from Strasbourg, something she felt would have been more properly carried out in a face-to-face meeting with his lawyers.