DJ Carey’s AIB mortgage unregistered for years

 • 29m ago

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A €358,000 mortgage given to DJ Carey by the then State-owned AIB was registered just four months after he consented to the bank’s €9.5m judgment against the hurling legend, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.

The revelation comes as AIB representatives appeared before the Oireachtas Finance Committee this week after politicians raised concerns about the size of Mr Carey’s debt write-down in the wake of recent media reports.

Property records show that, on September 22, 2011, the multiple All-Ireland winner registered a €358,000 mortgage from AIB – four months after he consented to AIB’s judgment against him and his then partner, the former Dragon’s Den presenter Sarah Newman.

Records show that on the same day Mr Carey’s late father John transferred part of his property in Gowran, Co. Kilkenny, to his son.

IT Carlow manager DJ Carey ahead of the Fitzgibbon Cup Semi-Final match between Mary Immaculate College Limerick and IT Carlow at Dublin City University Sportsgrounds. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile© Provided by Evoke.ie

The MoS understands the €358,000 mortgage was approved by AIB seven years beforehand, in 2004.

Despite the timeline of the paperwork, it is believed that no money was advanced following the May 2011 judgment. But it means that, during the intervening period, the bank held no legally enforceable security on the property.

It is understood Mr Carey and his former wife lived mortgage free in the house, which was built around 1995.

However, it was built without planning permission and ten years later the Kilkenny hurler applied for and was granted retention planning permission.

Former Kilkenny hurler and Competition Ambassador DJ Carey stands for a portrait during the Top Oil Leinster GAA Post Primary Schools Hurling Launch at Croke Park in Dublin. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile© Provided by Evoke.ie

In response to queries from the MoS, the AIB said it could not comment on individual cases.

A legal source told the MoS: ‘By then he and his wife had gone their separate ways and he needed planning permission to sell the house so he applied for retention in 2005.

‘He got a mortgage from the bank and that was in his sole name, so DJ’s name was registered as the sole owner of the property. But it seems the mortgage wasn’t registered for seven years. It was during the Celtic Tiger years and back then it could take as long as seven years for a mortgage to be registered on a property.’

Mr Carey’s mortgage on his former family home was cancelled when the property was sold for €190,000 in March 2016. When it was put on the market in October 2015 the asking price was €395,000. But AIB settled for less than half of that sum, according to the property price register.

DJ CAREY. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile© Provided by Evoke.ie

The proceeds of this sale went towards Mr Carey’s €9.5m debt settlement with AIB in 2017. Three other properties formerly owned by the multiple All-Ireland winner also went towards his debt settlement. The bank secured a High Court judgment for €9.5 million against Mr Carey in 2011 on loans of €7.85m that were advanced to buy golf resort properties at Mount Juliet and the K Club.

According to the Residential Property Price Register, in 2014 and 2015 a property at the Mount Juliet estate sold for €799,000, while the two properties in the K Club sold for €285,000 and €717,000.

These sales raised €1.8m which went towards reducing Mr Carey’s debt to AIB before the bank agreed in 2017 to settle his remaining debts for €60,000. This represents a write-off of €7.7m or about 80 per cent of the bank’s court judgment.

AIB must be quizzed over DJ Carey’s €9.5m debt deal, says F© Provided by Evoke.ie

AIB took the unusual step last month of issuing a detailed circular to staff about its policy on debt deals in response to political criticism and public anger after RTÉ reported Mr Carey secured a debt write-down of more than 99 per cent on the bank’s €9.5m judgment.

Bank executives appeared before the Oireachtas Finance Committee this week to explain how it agrees to debt settlements. AIB managing director of retail banking, Jim O’Keeffe, said around 1,900 borrowers secured private debt write-offs of more than 90 per cent since the

financial crash.