Brown envelopes alive and well in Dublins property

Heatmachine1 · 10-06-2014 07:03AM #1

I have heard from several well connected individuals about dodgy dealings being the way in Irelands property landscape.
I was speaking to a man this wknd with a good bit of property in Dublin who said the amount of brown envelopes changing hands is far greater than the boom.
These concern investors buying in multiples and properties not even let on the open market.
Blocks of apartments and hotels,15-20 houses at a snap for a bargain price.
Is this always going to be the way in Ireland,backhanders and secret payments while the general public gets s screwed.

dmc17 · 10-06-2014 07:15AM

Frankly I'm both shocked and appalled.....

dharma200 · 10-06-2014 07:18AM

I'd say NAMA have a big auld matress stuffed with brown envelopes at this stage

The Dagda · 10-06-2014 07:26AM

OP are you in the market for "blocks of apartments, hotels or 15-20 houses"? Do you know people who are in the market for such things?

I doubt it's a big problem.

So much anger and bitterness for something so trivial. Read a paper today and get angry at the scandal that is the "mother and baby schools" and the immoral and illegal acts that emanated from these places. They at least deserve your anger.

suicide_circus · 10-06-2014 07:31AM

Dont doubt it really.
There are several EU countries with a strong brown envelope heritage; ourselves, Spain, Greece, Italy...

This is why we can't have nice things.

Heatmachine1 · 10-06-2014 07:47AM

The Dagda wrote: »

OP are you in the market for "blocks of apartments, hotels or 15-20 houses"? Do you know people who are in the market for such things?

I doubt it's a big problem.

So much anger and bitterness for something so trivial. Read a paper today and get angry at the scandal that is the "mother and baby schools" and the immoral and illegal acts that emanated from these places. They at least deserve your anger.

This is the present thats the past that only an injuiry can get answers to.
its deoressing but I try not read the papers on such matters.

Tail Docker · 10-06-2014 08:14AM

Heatmachine1 wrote: »

I have heard from several well connected individuals about dodgy dealings being the way in Irelands property landscape.
I was speaking to a man this wknd with a good bit of property in Dublin who said the amount of brown envelopes changing hands is far greater than the boom.
These concern investors buying in multiples and properties not even let on the open market.
Blocks of apartments and hotels,15-20 houses at a snap for a bargain price.
Is this always going to be the way in Ireland,backhanders and secret payments while the general public gets s screwed.

Yes.

I think that covers it pretty much.

jimgoose · 10-06-2014 08:19AM

Is there anything actually wrong with that? You don't have to nail a timber sign to something with "Fiddlesticks Hames and Carew, Estage Agents to the Gentry" on it to sell it, property is sold privately and quietly all the time. It just goes to show, this NAMA meballacks was and is totally unnecessary. If there was a similar clear-out at knock-down prices back around 2009, involving the banks' also getting the kicking they were looking for for years, we'd have been in much better shape, faster.

10-06-2014 09:00AM

IBRC liquidation springs to mind. I thought the purpose of a liquidation was to sell assets off for as much as possible. But they rejected offers from the homeowners and accepted a seriously cheaper price from someone else.

Go figure.

SEPT 23 1989 · 10-06-2014 09:11AM

I am sure we will find out the scale of the corruption in a tribunal in twenty years time

Banjo String · 10-06-2014 09:14AM

Good news for all the brown envelope factories in the country?

Every cloud.

connundrum · 10-06-2014 09:17AM

tick, Tick, TIck, TICK... BOOOOOOM.

seamus · 10-06-2014 09:22AM

Heatmachine1 wrote: »

These concern investors buying in multiples and properties not even let on the open market.

You mean private entities transferring property in exchange for money, in private??! Those dastards!!!

Corruption is paying a liquidator a wad of cash to dispose of their clients' property at a drastically reduced rate, or bribing a local councillor to rezone your land and fast track your planning applications.

Simply doing deals in private is not corruption.

Frank Lee Midere · 10-06-2014 09:26AM

The Dagda wrote: »

OP are you in the market for "blocks of apartments, hotels or 15-20 houses"? Do you know people who are in the market for such things?

I doubt it's a big problem.

So much anger and bitterness for something so trivial. Read a paper today and get angry at the scandal that is the "mother and baby schools" and the immoral and illegal acts that emanated from these places. They at least deserve your anger.

That's appalling whataboutary. Also a false dilemma. We can get mad about both.

Rubberchikken · 10-06-2014 09:26AM

that's happening in every country.
some people are greedy. you dont have to be just irish.

Frank Lee Midere · 10-06-2014 09:26AM

seamus wrote: »

You mean private entities transferring property in exchange for money, in private??! Those dastards!!!

Corruption is paying a liquidator a wad of cash to dispose of their clients' property at a drastically reduced rate, or bribing a local councillor to rezone your land and fast track your planning applications.

Simply doing deals in private is not corruption.

I am sure he is talking about Nama owned properties.

MarkR · 10-06-2014 09:29AM

I only have white envelopes in my office. Case of the haves and have nots I suppose. Damn the man.

connundrum · 10-06-2014 09:31AM

MarkR wrote: »

I only have white envelopes in my office. Case of the haves and have nots I suppose. Damn the man.

You could have been a contender.

MarkR · 10-06-2014 09:32AM

connundrum wrote: »

You could have been a contender.

Nope. Not a set of stairs in running distance. Perfect enunciation. Screwed from the get go.

Gambas · 10-06-2014 09:33AM

Heatmachine1 wrote: »

I have heard from several well connected individuals about dodgy dealings being the way in Irelands property landscape.
I was speaking to a man this wknd with a good bit of property in Dublin who said the amount of brown envelopes changing hands is far greater than the boom.
These concern investors buying in multiples and properties not even let on the open market.
Blocks of apartments and hotels,15-20 houses at a snap for a bargain price.
Is this always going to be the way in Ireland,backhanders and secret payments while the general public gets s screwed.

People are paying backhanders and secret payments for what?

Why would people sell at a bargain price?

Frank Lee Midere · 10-06-2014 09:38AM

Gambas wrote: »

People are paying backhanders and secret payments for what?

Why would people sell at a bargain price?

He's saying NAMA is giving away property to friends of NAMA. If I understand him. For brown envelopes. The envelopes are not to buy the property but to encourage the deal.

That's what brown envelopes mean.

Valetta · 10-06-2014 09:41AM

I have no idea how anyone can assume that the OP is talking about NAMA, as it was never mentioned in the post.

Perhaps they could clarify, with a few more details?

Otherwise it is just another incoherent whinge about nothing in particular.

conorhal · 10-06-2014 09:42AM

The Dagda wrote: »

OP are you in the market for "blocks of apartments, hotels or 15-20 houses"? Do you know people who are in the market for such things?

I doubt it's a big problem.

So much anger and bitterness for something so trivial. Read a paper today and get angry at the scandal that is the "mother and baby schools" and the immoral and illegal acts that emanated from these places. They at least deserve your anger.

This post makes me angry. The potential for billions to be defrauded from the taxpayer that's already bailing out the failures of the state to regulate a sector isn't a big problem?

I hear anecdotal evidence of builders that have gone bankrupt, who caused the state to bail out the banks because they could not repay loans, buying back the same properties at a fraction of the cost that their debts were written off for.
But sure, let's exercise ourselves about a 70yr old crime instead, because there's plenty of time to get angry about this 2084 perhaps?

Frank Lee Midere · 10-06-2014 09:43AM

Valetta wrote: »

I have no idea how anyone can assume that the OP is talking about NAMA, as it was never mentioned in the post.

Perhaps they could clarify, with a few more details?

Otherwise it is just another incoherent whinge about nothing in particular.

Who else would have so many properties on the books? Aren't all of our developers bankrupt? And that's what brown bags mean. It's a euphemism for a bribe. You don't bribe private investors and they would generally benefit from open auctions anyway.

Frank Lee Midere · 10-06-2014 09:46AM

conorhal wrote: »

This post makes me angry. The potential for billions to be defrauded from the taxpayer that's already bailing out the failures of the state to regulate a sector isn't a big problem?

I hear anecdotal evidence of builders that have gone bankrupt, who caused the state to bail out the banks because they could not repay loans, buying back the same properties at a fraction of the cost that their debts were written off for.
But sure, let's exercise ourselves about a 70yr old crime instead, because there's plenty of time to get angry about this 2084 perhaps?

Yeah. We just love getting angry about the past. Talk about present corruption. That's just Internet talk. Whines.

We'll get angry about this in 2040.

Valetta · 10-06-2014 09:49AM

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Who else would have so many properties on the books? Aren't all of our developers bankrupt? And that's what brown bags mean. It's a euphemism for a bribe. You don't bribe private investors and they would generally benefit from open auctions anyway.

There are many multiple property owners.

All developers are not bankrupt.

Private investors are often given incentives (not bribes), which is a perfectly legitimate way of doing business.

You are making an awful lot of assumptions, as is the OP.

Gambas · 10-06-2014 09:57AM

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

He's saying NAMA is giving away property to friends of NAMA. If I understand him. For brown envelopes. The envelopes are not to buy the property but to encourage the deal.

That's what brown envelopes mean.

In that case I'm absolutely certain he's talking nonsense.

conorhal · 10-06-2014 10:04AM

Valetta wrote: »

There are many multiple property owners.

All developers are not bankrupt.

Private investors are often given incentives (not bribes), which is a perfectly legitimate way of doing business.

You are making an awful lot of assumptions, as is the OP.

There are two things however that are quite clear, NAMA on it's setup (just like Irish Water) was made deliberately exempt from freedom of information requests. It's management is quite secretive and well, we all know how politics works in this country, our 'new government' is looking very much like the old one in the manner in which it does business, we should of course have guessed this when, practically their first act in government, saw Phil Hogan quietly shut down the planning enquiry started by the last government. Why?
Well governments, as we saw lately tend to be rather bad at winning mid term CoCo elections. So the majority of counsels were FG and Lab run in Dublin and many of the area that saw dodgy development, naturally with more to loose from the enquiry then FF, the present government quietly shut it down, and these poeple are in charge of NAMA?

Gambas · 10-06-2014 10:35AM

conorhal wrote: »

There are two things however that are quite clear, NAMA on it's setup (just like Irish Water) was made deliberately exempt from freedom of information requests. It's management is quite secretive and well, we all know how politics works in this country, our 'new government' is looking very much like the old one in the manner in which it does business, we should of course have guessed this when, practically their first act in government, saw Phil Hogan quietly shut down the planning enquiry started by the last government. Why?
Well governments, as we saw lately tend to be rather bad at winning mid term CoCo elections. So the majority of counsels were FG and Lab run in Dublin and many of the area that saw dodgy development, naturally with more to loose from the enquiry then FF, the present government quietly shut it down, and these poeple are in charge of NAMA?

These people aren't in charge of NAMA. The man in charge of NAMA is the man who in charge of Revenue when it went after the Ansbacher account holders, the other offshore account holders, and every other major Revenue investigation and despite all the murmurs of corruption in this country, nobody has ever seen fit to accuse Revenue of any corruption. 99% of stuff written about NAMA here and elsewhere is factually incorrect, mainly because most people don't even grasp the fact that NAMA by and large deals in loans and not property. And now it looks like Irish Water is to be the new cause celebré of the vocally ignorant.

dharma200 · 10-06-2014 10:42AM

of course they deal with loans... loans that are usually secured with PROPERTY which is then sold (brown envelopes perhaps, former employees, blah blah we can all read) to recoup maximum amount of said loans. I know there are stupid people about, but we are not that stupid.

Frank Lee Midere · 10-06-2014 11:51AM

Gambas wrote: »

In that case I'm absolutely certain he's talking nonsense.

Yes, God knows the present can't be corrupt only the past. We are all squeaky clean now.

Brown envelopes alive and well in Dublins property

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