Such as might have been overheard if you were listening in on the domestic life of the Kelly family on Morehampton Road yesterday. ACC Bank who, according to the Irish Times, are apparently owed at least €16.9m from Paddy Kelly and his sons Simon and Christopher yesterday removed the 2003 7-series BMW that Paddy used to chauffeur Fintan O’Toole around only three weeks ago. Paddy has reportedly claimed that the car is in his wife, Maureen’s, name and Paddy is taking legal advice as his next steps. Of course there is no love lost between Paddy and ACC Bank – take a look at Paddy’s recent speech at the MacGill Summer School and you’ll see a few particularly nasty swipes by Paddy at ACC in what was generally an amiable speech. That was the speech where Paddy also potentially landed NAMA’s Head of Portfolio Management, John Mulcahy, in the doo-doo by revealing it was John Mulcahy that valued Paddy’s Burlington Plaza at €350m a few years back.
Paddy appears to be getting on with life and rebuilding his businesses particularly overseas, and as he reminded Fintan O’Toole a few weeks ago he’s faced financial hardship before and bounced back. Still, discovering that the bank has repossessed the car, lawfully or not, can’t be nice.
UPDATE: 7th August, 2010. Paddy has found his keys! And ACC Bank has returned the car to Paddy’s family, with, according to the Irish Times, an apology from the driver. As can be seen from the photograph in the Irish Times, Paddy is delighted but the absence of any visible watch on either of Paddy’s wrists may indicate Paddy is being far more careful than his seemingly innocuous character would suggest.
UPDATE: 9th August 2010. One of Paddy Kelly’s progeny, Simon, writes about the car drama in his weekly column in Ireland’s Sunday Tribune. After exhorting mortgage holders to unite against the banks, this scion of the non-grudge-holding Kelly family suggests that the repossessed & returned BMW would be a good vehicle to survey Irish property backing ACC loans with a possible implication that ACC may be nursing large losses here or may have to use the property to redress the apparent boo-boo of repossessing property that didn’t belong to Paddy Kelly.
UPDATE: 23rd December, 2010. ACC Bank has repossessed the car again and this time it looks terminal for Paddy. The Dublin City Sheriff apparently found an interview from 2004 in the International Herald Tribune (not available online it seems) which apparently showed Paddy as the beneficial owner. It seems not to be in dispute that the car is registered to Paddy’s wife but the claim is that Paddy is the beneficial owner. The car is valued by the sheriff at €15,000 but he thinks he might get more because of its former celebrity owner.
I think they should have taken his house and every stitch of clothing and he should be then forced to walk up to the dole office only to be told he is not entitled to nothing
What about all the poor suckers that are saddled with the overpriced properties ,sitting in negative equity and no jobs ,the bank is not so nice to them!
He got the car back this morning….. with an apology from the sheriff. It legally belongs to his wife. See tomorrow’s newspapers for photos of Paddy waving from the returned car. Who minds the minders when they break the law “enforcing” it?
I’ve now updated the entry. I’m sure Maureen Kelly may have something to say about her car being removed despite, allegedly, there being communication beforehand with the sheriff/ACC Bank to tell them the car belonged to Maureen.