A former banker and a solicitor have launched a campaign they say is aimed at helping borrowers whose mortgages were sold to investment funds and are under financial pressure.
Through the firm Quartech Services, operating under the Misselling.ie name, the men want to take cases on behalf of homeowners they believe may have been mis-sold mortgages before 2009.
Ben Hoey, who previously worked as a senior executive for Kennedy Wilson, Bank of Ireland and Merrill Lynch and Barry Lyons, who runs a Dublin law firm specialising in insolvency, estimate as many as 15% of all Irish residential mortgages could be impacted, involving 200,000 people.
Using the campaign the men want to recruit thousands of these homeowners and use the regulatory and legal system here to apply EU consumer protection law in an effort to secure compensation for clients.
"We start by making a complaint on behalf of our clients to the fund as the current owner of the home loan," Mr Hoey said.
"If there isn't a satisfactory outcome, we file a complaint with the Financial Services & Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO)."
"If they fail to apply EU law for consumer protection, we will then take cases to the High Court in Ireland and so on until, if necessary, we appeal to the EU Court of Justice."
The two men claim they have already begun action in 130 cases involving prominent funds and credit servicing firms.
"We are bringing to bear two key provisions of EU law, which is superior to Irish law, to attain justice for our clients," Mr Lyons said.
"These are the European Communities Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Directive 1995 (UTCD) as interpreted in a series of recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) cases where what constitutes unfair mortgage terms were clarified."
"The EU’s "principle of effectiveness" means that individuals must be able to exercise their rights under EU law to ensure it is directly effective as though enacted in national legislation."
"This means that for the first time what comprises unfair terms in mortgage contracts is clear and effective in Ireland."
He claimed that before 2009 many mortgages here were sold on the basis of what would be considered unfair terms in the context of the UTCD.
The men say the ECJ has espoused principles under the UTCD including stressing transparency and the need for consumers to understand the financial implications of contracts, as well as the need for terms to be clear and understandable to average consumers, including loan transfers.
There must also be transparency in rate determination and changes and risks must be clearly explained.
Misselling.ie says it uses a mapping exercise to establish if a claimant has a strong case based on the findings of previous cases, contracts, documentation and Central Bank codes.
The men say most of the people impacted by alleged mis-selling of mortgages in the years before the financial crash are now aged in their 50s.
Some of those whose loans have been sold to so-called "vulture funds" have been paying interest rates of up to 9% because of ECB rate hikes over the past two years, putting many under significant financial pressure.
