Investment 140: Citywest suites bought for €52m
A total of 120 investors bought 140 holiday apartments from Jim Mansfield, the developer, in the Citywest Golf Suites complex in west Dublin in 2002, at a total cost of €52m. Each investor paid between €200,000 and €400,000 a unit, and agreed to lease the apartments back to Mansfield as suites in an apartment hotel for seven years. In return, they would get a guaranteed monthly rental income of about €800, and they would also be entitled to a tax break. However, rent payments to investors eventually stopped because of financial problems at HSS, a company owned by Mansfield that controlled the Citywest hotel complex. HSS owed approximately €170m to Bank of Scotland, which appointed Martin Ferris as receiver in July 2010.
Unpaid: Investors owed €1.2m in rent
When HSS went into receivership, the firm owed €1.2m in unpaid rent to investors in the Citywest Golf Suites. The owners of the suites say they have not received any payments in more than two years, and are being denied access to their apartments even though they are still making mortgage repayments of up to €2,400 a month on the properties. They have been told by the receiver that they cannot occupy the suites, convert them into apartments to rent out, or even enter the Citywest complex, because the building does not have planning permission or insurance for owner-occupiers. At least five apartments have been repossessed by banks after the owners failed to keep up mortgage repayments.
Sit-in: Dublin man occupies apartment in protest
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Thomas Bradshaw, whose mother Angela pays a monthly mortgage of €2,400 for one of the suites, broke a window of a ground-floor apartment last week and staged a sit-in protest with two friends in the complex. Gardai were called, but the 29-year-old Bradshaw produced deeds to prove his right to be there, and no arrest was made. “There has been nothing done for the past two years; the building has been lying empty and is just going to waste,” he said. “I’ll be here until we get the answers.” Angela Bradshaw owns other investment properties, and the family claim that she will lose them all, including her own home, if rent from the Citywest suite is not received soon.
Plan B: New planning permission could solve problem
Capitacorp, a property and financial-services company acting on behalf of the investors, is working with a firm of architects to prepare a planning application for a change of use for the building from hotel suites to apartments. This could potentially solve the dispute and allow owners access to their properties. Jack Kinnerk, the director of Capitacorp, said that a fee of €500 a suite would be required from investors and consent must be given by Ferris, left, the receiver, before the application could be completed. Ferris said that while he had sympathy for the position in which the investors found themselves, he had to await legal advice before making a decision on the future of the development.