has been cleared of discriminating against a 69-year-old man after refusing to give him a €275,000 personal loan to trade down to a smaller home in his retirement.
The estate agent told him the sellers “wanted a quick sale and would only accept offers from ‘cash buyers’ or buyers with prior loan approval,” he said, so he approached his bank looking for €275,000. After sending Permanent TSB a statutory notification form under the Equal Status Act, he said the bank told him it “might review” whether it could provide a bridging loan – but that when he followed it up he was told no such arrangement would be approved in advance of a potential house purchase.
“The parameters of the bank’s credit policy for [a bridging loan] were not acceptable to the complainant and he did not proceed with any formal application,” he said. “The complainant did not formally apply for a mortgage which, in any event, would not appear to be suitable for the short-term purpose which [he] required,” Mr Hutchinson said, adding that Mr McLoughlin had sought to get credit within a week when a mortgage would usually take around four months to arrange.