You lose your job. You fall behind on your mortgage payments. The bank brings you to court. They say you owe them €100,000. You say you only have 35,000 and show everything you can to prove it.
They ask if you are expecting to have any more money, anytime soon.
You say no.
You offer them the €35,000 to settle which is all you have and they accept that. The court signs off on this as a full and final setlement. All happy.
You go home and transfer the money to the bank. You expect them to process it and send you the deeds of the house in the next few months. Fore the first time in years you can relax and focus on the future.
A few weeks later you are in the pub. There’s a picture taken of a group who’ve won the lottery. You are visible sitting down in the background.
You get a letter from the bank saying you won the lottery, they saw you in a winners’ photo in the paper. You send them another article saying it was a work group, you’re unemployed and never worked in that company anyway.
The bank aren’t happy. They threaten to cancel the deal. You go to the national lottery and obtain a statement confirming you didn’t win.
The bank goes to court. It accepts that there is a case to be heard based on the newspaper article. They don’t read your letter from the national lottery.
They restrain you from selling the house, or spending any other money you have, until the investigation is complete.
The bank are slow. 6 months later they’ve done nothing. You apply for your deeds. The bank writes back saying that you lied about not having any money at the time of the deal. They say that you didn’t mention you bought a lottery ticket, or that you might win the lottery.
You pinch yourself to make sure you’re not in a Franz Kafka movie.
The court accepts that the bank have a right to know, they refuse to look at any evidence you provide, and grant every single application the bank makes so as to restrict your ablity to move on with your life.
There is no end to this process.
Two years later, you get your old job back and get a raise.
The banks says it is entitled to some of this money.
Your aunt dies and leaves you 10 grand.
The bank says it is entitled to this too.
The court freezes this money until the hearing.
The bank are slow and it takes another year before they provide their peperwork. The court does nothing about it.
You are slow to provide a document which the bank asked you for.
The court threatens to send you to jail unless you provide it within 7 days.
And if you think this doesn’t happen on a regular basis, then you haven’t been to the family law court in Ireland. That is exactly what happens. Just replace the bank with your ex-wife.