Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that somebody has lost possession of or access to their property and there is no body to which they can complain. There is no overarching regulatory body regulating receivers. This was touched upon earlier in reference to qualifications. Required qualifications for examiners and liquidators are set out in sections 519 and 633 of the 2014 Act, but no qualification whatsoever is required for receivers. I make this comment because there are numerous properties with receivers appointed about whom I have no knowledge. I presume that is done in a fair, transparent and decent way. I am not suggesting that the idea of a receivership is wrong. However, I am aware of numerous cases where there has been thuggish or unacceptable behaviour; where tenants are locked out of their businesses without notice; where they have no access to their own personal property; or where the receivers fail to communicate with the individual over and over again. There are countless examples of properties being sold below market value and below what was offered several months earlier. There are other cases where the overall cost of the receivership, not just the fee, is nearly 30% of the actual value for which the property is disposed of at the end of the day. In other cases, businesses that one could argue are going concerns are run into the ground. When are we going to deal with this? We need to regulate receivers. We need to set up a minimum standard of qualification, just as there are for examiners and liquidators. We need to regulate them and have a governing body for them, and we need to set up very clear structures for people who feel they have been wronged by receivers.

This is the madness of this issue. The Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 very clearly provides that the receiver is the agent for the borrower. We all know that the receiver does not act for the borrower. The receiver is appointed by the bank or institution. In law it is an agent of the borrower. The receiver is supposed to run the company or business and pay back the mortgage on behalf of the borrower, but the reality on the ground in numerous cases is that their work is in complete conflict with that aim. The option open to an individual such as my constituent is to go to the High Court. That is out of the reach of most people. I want to get to the crux of this. As I said, I have been raising this since December 2015. We still have not moved forward much in my view. Has the Company Law Review Group looked at this issue? Is it actually going to take any action on it?