They really ought to speed this up and get the buyers to pony up or apply some suitable penalty. Having a question mark over whether or not contracts in Ireland are enforceable could do a lot of harm to our international reputation.
The developers have done nothing wrong here.
Those buyers should be nailed to the fucking wall to complete imo.
That’s what I meant just in case it wasn’t clear.
Apparently there are rafts of developments where stacks of people are not completing. Logic of the developers is to go the who way with a few to shake the money out of the others.
Unfortunately the Courts will have to side with the developers on this one. A contract is a contract if you went into it with your eyes wide open. Anything less and contract law in Ireland will become meaningless.
Why is this unfortunate? I have even more contempt for the specuvestors then the developers (except for Mc Namara who specuvetsed in his own development so he gets double contempt). Nail them and trust that the courts will be just to ordinary people who were only buying a home (AFAIK this is the vast minority)
My sympathies would lie with the developers in this one.
There’s no way in hell a jury will side with a property developer up against a 25 year-old nurse facing a 40 year mortgage.
Um, not sure there are jury trials in the commercial court…
Weren’t we just saying above that most of these cases (under €1m) won’t be going before the commercial court?
Quite right, sorry.
On the other hand, the judge can direct the jury to a particular verdict if there is no case to answer - if the contract is valid and the buyer willingly signed it.
There are no juries in Civil cases with the exception of defamation.
One would hope that the developer has the sense to only go after those who have a hope in paying for it. If a buyer bought in good faith but can no longer get the mortgage then there is no point in trying to force the sale as there most likely is no money there. If however as was stated in the piece that they are trying to go after buyers of multiple units then one would assume they have been doing this for a while and should have some equity built up.
Edited to add that sometimes one likes to speak like Judi Dench.
Oh right.
The Courts will not make a distinction between investors and owner-occupiers. The contract will be interpreted irrespective of who the contracting parties are.
Yes, and this is the type of weasel specuvestor who needs to be nailed
I’ve never heard that term used before. “…the vast minority of cases…” hmmm suppose it works. it is like ‘misunderestimating’
I typed that with a grin, I am feeling a little linguistically mischievous today.
it is a tactic in same way as debt collection
you don’t chase debts through courts to get money
you sue for debts to make sure your compliant debtors stay compliant
this sends a message to anybody thinking of reneging on the contract even though they can afford to complete