A man threatened his wife with violence to make her sign a loan form for a business deal, the High Court has heard.
George Raymond brought the mortgage papers to his wife Ruth in the kitchen of their Delgany, Co Wicklow home in June 2006.
He needed them co-signed as the €800,000 loan he wanted for a development site he had just bought at auction had to be secured on the family home.
In an affidavit, he said he saw no other way of raising the finance to complete the deal. He said he became extremely agitated by his now separated wife's refusal to cooperate.
"I was outraged that she questioned my judgement, but she continued pleading with me not to make her sign, crying and begging me not to risk the family home.
"I am ashamed to say that I lost control and became extremely aggressive towards her, shouting insults and throwing a kitchen stool, behaving in a menacing fashion and threatening her with physical violence in order to get her (sic) make her sign."
Arrears
Mr Raymond's evidence was given as part of a defence to proceedings against the Raymonds by Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank, seeking possession of the family home based on arrears of more than €1 million arising out of the €800,000 loan and a separate €200,000 mortgage for the family home taken out in 2005.
In 2006, Mr Raymond bought a site for three houses in his name and that of his business partner, with the intention that he would build a new family home on one site, his business partner would do the same with the second and the third site would be sold for a profit.
Mrs Raymond did not have any legal interest in the development site and maintained she did not receive any benefit from the loan agreement which was manifestly to her disadvantage.
In her affidavit, Mrs Raymond said she had signed the papers for the development site under duress from her husband.
She said her husband presented the loan agreement to her one evening without any third party present and demanded she sign it.
She said she refused "and told him that I was not prepared to risk losing my family home for any of his deals."
She said he then became "extremely angry and aggressive towards me" and "I feared for my life." She felt as though she had no option but to sign but said she did so under extreme duress.
She accepted there was default on repayment of the first loan for the family home.
Possession of the family home
The Circuit Court granted the bank an order for possession of the family home in March 2019 based on default on the family home loan. An appeal was lodged with the High Court.
In his decision on the appeal on Friday, Mr Justice Garrett Simons said it was only the enforceability of the second €800,000 loan agreement as against Mrs Raymond that had been challenged because it was alleged it was entered under duress.
The first loan of €200,000 for the family home, borrowed in 2005, had become due, and Mrs Raymond had not sought to argue otherwise, he said.
In the absence of any evidence that Mrs Raymond has the financial capability to discharge the arrears under this loan, there was no basis for this court to exercise a discretion that the home could not be repossessed because of the Family Home Protection Act, assuming it was applicable at all to the circumstances of this case, he said.
He therefore granted an order for possession of the family home but granted a stay of six months to allow Mrs Raymond, who is still living there, to arrange alternative accommodation.
In relation to the bank’s entitlement to rely on the second loan agreement of €800,000 made in June 2006, this cannot be determined without a plenary hearing given the evidence put forward in relation to undue influence, he said.
The existence of the dispute over the second loan did not adversely affect the bank's entitlement to seek an order for possession in relation to the family home loan, he said.
