Widowed mother of four Rachel Drumm – a sister-in-law of former Anglo Irish Bank chief David Drumm – was on Wednesday given six months to find alternative accommodation for her family after a judge confirmed execution of a repossession order on their €600,000 home.
Mrs Drumm was in tears in the Circuit Civil Court when her barrister, Keith Farry, told Judge John O’Connor she had consented to the execution order being made against her and asked that she be given a 16-month stay to allow her daughter to complete her secondary education.
Judge O’Connor told Mr Farry there was an air of unreality about Mrs Drumm’s hopes and expectations and granted her a six-month stay.
The judge said six months should be enough time to allow her to contact her local authority with regard to the provision of alternative accommodation but advised that she should act quickly on the matter.
Mrs Drumm, in an affidavit, told the court she was now working full time as a senior account manager, and had hoped to reach an arrangement with Mars Capital Ireland Limited which had taken over her mortgage.
Barrister Shaula Connaughton Deeny, for the bank, told Judge O’Connor there was no hope of Mrs Drumm being able to pay off the €2 million debt on her home in Skerries, Co Dublin. Ms Connaughton Deeny said the arrears on the mortgage was close to €1 million.
She said Judge Jacqueline Linnane had granted possession of the property in 2015 and Mars Capital was now seeking vacant possession following a three-month stay.
Mrs Drumm, who opposed the granting on the final execution of Judge Linnane’s order, said she wished to engage with Mars Capital as there had been a material and fundamental change in her circumstances following the death in London in October last year of her former husband, Kenneth Drumm.
She said she was now a single mother with four dependant children and two elderly parents to care for.
Mrs Drumm said she had contributed towards repayments on her loan but found that her ex-husband had not been forwarding the money to the bank. He had gone to the UK and had left her to raise their four children by herself.
Mrs Drumm said that if she was given time she would engage with the bank. She set out serious personal issues regarding herself and if not given a chance to resolve her financial problems they would be homeless.
She said there were no houses or apartments to rent in Skerries or anywhere locally and their lives would come to a halt. The future was scary despite having sought and been promised aid from some family and friends.
David Drumm
Mr Farry said David Drumm was also a borrower on the property. Mrs Drumm said in her affidavit that only in recent times had she got to the bottom of what had been going on with the mortgage.
“I now have the EBS computer notes outlining correspondence between EBS [the former lender] and David Drumm and Ken Drumm,” Mrs Drumm said. “I did not know this was occurring.”
She said she was paying €650 monthly into one of the EBS accounts and she thought her husband Ken had been paying the remainder. She had paid this from 2019 until 2021 and only stopped because Ken had locked her out of the account, changing all details and would not give her the login.
“I presume now it was so that I wouldn’t find out he wasn’t actually paying anything into the account,” she said.
She said she would now attend with a Personal Insolvency Practitioner. She had been ordered to leave the house in 2015 which she had done and had moved into rental accommodation for three years.
The court heard Mrs Drumm and her family had afterwards moved back in to the house and Mrs Drumm told Judge O’Connor she now appreciated the situation she was in.
“David Drumm, Ken’s brother, was also named on the mortgage, which I didn’t know at the time and I now need to understand how his bankruptcy affected this debt and asset,” Mrs Drumm said in her affidavit.
“David also had some convictions in relation to false accounting and Ken was, up until his death, working with David in the UK and possibly needed to shield him from any fallout from this, so he was not intent and very slow at resolving the issues with the home loan with the bank,” she told the court in her statement.
Mrs Drumm said she had now taken new legal advice in the last few days and was progressing to ascertain the position of her late husband’s representatives, the estate, and his insurance policies.
Judge O’Connor said he was deeply sympathetic to the family and health situation as it affected Mrs Drumm, but reality had to be faced. His was not a court of appeal and he could not overturn the decision of his former colleague Judge Linnane, he said.
Granting Mrs Drumm six months stay of his order allowing the bank to execute the repossession order, he said he would make no order as to costs against Mrs Drumm on Wednesday’s hearing.
