{"id":17595,"date":"2025-04-08T10:57:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T09:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=17595"},"modified":"2025-04-08T10:57:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T09:57:18","slug":"exit-through-the-vestry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2025\/04\/08\/exit-through-the-vestry\/","title":{"rendered":"Exit through the Vestry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><strong>Vestry\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">\/\u02c8v\u025bstri\/\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><em>Noun<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">a room or building attached to a church, used as an office and for changing into ceremonial vestments.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">a real estate investment trust (REIT), incorporated in the Republic of Ireland.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There comes a moment when you discover a person the trajectory of whose business affairs appears to embody the rotten nature of Irish housing. Such people are often perceived as visionaries of the real estate market, top of their class in producing a return on investment through a system that permits widespread human suffering. One such visionary is Richard Moyles, director and largest shareholder of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vision-net.ie\/Company-Info\/The-Vestry-General-Partner-Designated-Activity-Company-657170\">The Vestry General Partner DAC<\/a><\/span>, one of Ireland\u2019s most powerful landlords. Moyles is also a director of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/belettings.com\/\">Be Lettings<\/a><\/span>, the letting agent Vestry uses to manage its tenancies and properties. Characters like Moyles are endemic in our communities. We are told that their investments are what make the world spin. Sure, only for them, wouldn\u2019t it all be so much worse? Or, as the American President laughed with the Taoiseach on the subject of the Housing Crisis, \u201cIt\u2019s a good problem to have.\u201d In this piece, I push against this narrative \u2013 with Richard Moyles as a touchstone, and paint a picture at the iceberg\u2019s tip. This is not, however, Richard\u2019s story. It\u2019s the story of a mother and her young son with nowhere to go; the same story as thousands of other tenants whose lives are determined by the decisions of men and women like him.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-17603 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Vestry2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Jen has lived in an apartment in Dublin 1 for a decade, becoming Vestry\u2019s tenant when the group acquired the property in 2021. Her son, Danny (aged 5), has known no other home. Vestry bought the apartment from Grant Thornton for \u20ac325,700, after the previous landlord went into receivership and Grant Thornton took control of the property. \u201cThe landlords were changing like socks,\u201d Jen told me over the phone. She received a letter through the door, explaining that the property had changed hands, and that she would now be Vestry\u2019s tenant. \u201cNo one asked me\u201d, she said, \u201cif they want to sell the apartment, I should be the first person they asked.\u201d Vestry\u2019s control over the property immediately made Jen and Danny\u2019s situation insecure. Under the previous owner, Jen had signed a lease until January 2026. Vestry were under no legal obligation, however, to honour this agreement. \u201cThe law is on their side,\u201d Jen said.<\/p>\n<p>Jen\u2019s case is among the fifteen disputes between Vestry and their tenants that have come before the Residential Tenancy Board over the last six months. Her story is quite typical of many of those before the RTB \u2013 the landlord wants to sell, and the tenant, caught in the tempest of the housing crisis, cannot leave. Jen told me that Dublin City Council offered to buy the property under the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizensinformation.ie\/en\/housing\/renting-a-home\/help-with-renting\/cost-rental-tenant-in-situ-scheme\/\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">tenant-in-situ scheme<\/span><\/a>. Vestry, however, declined the offer which would have secured a \u201cmarket rate\u201d purchase for Vestry and a home for Jen and Danny. A win-win scenario, one would have thought. \u201cMy main issue is that there is no transparency between government bodies, landlords, and tenants. I don\u2019t understand why it [the DCC offer] was so secret.\u201d A representative from Be Lettings told Jen that they were looking for between \u20ac350,000 and \u20ac375,000 for the apartment. When Jen asked the DCC worker charged with acquisitions under the tenant-in-situ scheme what offer was made to Vestry, she was looked at \u201clike (she) had two heads.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When I went to visit Jen and Danny, accompanied by members of the Mountjoy-Dorset branch of the Community Action Tenants Union (CATU), Danny\u2019s energy and curiosity was infectious. Jen and the CATU members decided to knock on every door in the apartment building, with Danny\u2019s exuberant voice echoing through the stairwells as his mother pleaded her case to her neighbours. He showed us his favourite book, Torben Kuhlmann\u2019s <em>Lindbergh &#8211; The Tale of the Flying Mouse<\/em>. The book tells the story of what Danny described as a \u201cgenius mouse\u201d, who is forced to flee Germany after the humans create a labyrinth of mouse traps, leaving himself and his friends on the run. The similarity between Danny and the little mouse was, frankly, striking. Surplus to Vestry\u2019s requirements, little Danny and his mother must now make their way in a city filled with the sorrow and stress of displacement.<\/p>\n<p>One of the CATU members pointed to a leaflet poking out from under the door of one of Jen\u2019s downstairs neighbours. He had left it there a couple of weeks previously. \u201cWell, there\u2019s no one in that house\u201d, the member remarked. How could it be that this woman could be facing homelessness, while a perfectly suitable house seemingly lay vacant, right under where they slept? Such is the effect of a political economy whereby a basic human right, housing, is treated as a speculative asset for men like Moyles to gamble with.<\/p>\n<p>CATU are currently representing a number of Vestry tenants who are facing eviction by the investment trust. \u201c\u2060It&#8217;s typical that our members are being put at risk of homelessness due to no fault of their own. It&#8217;s also typical that private landlords are prioritising their shareholder profits at the expense of housing insecurity for our members and other tenants,\u201d Lily Palmer, communications officer for CATU Mountjoy-Dorset told me. In response to the evictions, and fearing that Vestry may be carrying out mass, citywide evictions, CATU Mountjoy-Dorset have purchased a dedicated phone for Vestry tenants to contact them, should they want representation from the Tenant\u2019s Union, called the <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DHoXYK8CllG\/?igsh=NGdkeXVsZTNmZGpj&amp;img_index=1\">\u201cVestry Hotline\u201d<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n<p>In 2023, <em>The Ditch<\/em> reported that <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ontheditch.com\/irish-fund-biggest-landlords\/\">Vestry controlled more than 850 homes<\/a> <\/span>in the Irish rental market, posting more than \u20ac20 million in profit. Company records show that Moyles is the company\u2019s largest single shareholder, through an investment firm wholly owned by him, called <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solocheck.ie\/Irish-Company\/Apsone-Invest-Limited-618850\">Apsone Investments Ltd<\/a><\/span>. Mr Moyles keeps good company with his fellow shareholders, a who\u2019s who of property moguls. Let\u2019s take <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solocheck.ie\/Irish-Company\/Silk-Shadow-Limited-546319\">Silk Shadow Ltd<\/a><\/span>, who control 10% of Vestry. Silk Shadow is owned by property power couple<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"> <a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2023\/04\/28\/the-health-coach-and-the-docklands-property-a-post-crash-ownership-tale\/\">Hilary and Christy Dowling<\/a><\/span> . In 2011, Newlyn Homes Limited, which controls 100% of Silk Shadow had \u20ac22 million of its loans transferred to the National Management Asset Agency (NAMA). Christy is also a co-director of Vestry and <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solocheck.ie\/Irish-Company\/Beo-Ventures-Limited-656832\">Beo Ventures Ltd<\/a><\/span>, along with Robert Kehoe and <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/ie.globaldatabase.com\/company\/beo-ventures-limited\">Andrew Gunne<\/a><\/span>. Andrew Gunne, incidentally, was previously a director of Focus Ireland, a charity apparently tasked with alleviating the humanitarian crisis of homelessness. The Vestry group reveals a complex web of companies, all with their fingers in the Irish home market, or indeed, the Irish homeless market.<\/p>\n<p>Moyles, along with Vestry co-director, Robert Kehoe, are directors of Be Lettings. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/belettings.com\/\">Be Lettings<\/a><\/span> describe themselves as \u201ca leading residential letting and management business with a nationwide portfolio of houses and apartments\u201d. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.daft.ie\/sold\/83-the-way-hunters-run-clonee-dublin-15-d15e0pv\/5A97E5567BC4316A80258C5200603961\">In at least one case<\/a><\/span> Be Lettings has sold properties to Vestry itself. One effect of such \u2018house flipping\u2019 is rampant inflation in the housing market. For example, a 3-bed, 2-bathroom, semi-detached house in Dublin 15 was <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">bought<a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.propertypriceregister.ie\/website\/npsra\/ppr\/npsra-ppr.nsf\/eStampUNID\/UNID-19572E0FA3E5774D802584D4004CFAF2?OpenDocument\"> in November 2019 for \u20ac287,500.00<\/a><\/span>. In January of 2025, the same property was sold to Moyles&#8217; Vestry by Moyles&#8217; Be Lettings for <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.propertypriceregister.ie\/Website\/npsra\/PPR\/npsra-ppr.nsf\/eStampUNID\/UNID-5A97E5567BC4316A80258C5200603961?OpenDocument\">\u20ac400,050.00<\/a><\/span>. Land registry documents show Vestry is this property\u2019s current owner. It was surely no coincidence that Be Lettings facilitated the sale, allowing Moyles to benefit through his shareholdings both from the sale of the property, and from its future tenancies. According to Vestry\u2019s accounts this home, and Jen\u2019s, are listed as a security for a company called <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vision-net.ie\/Company-Info\/Situs-Asset-Management-Ireland-Designated-Activity-Company-604690\">Situs Asset Management Limited<\/a><\/span>. This means that should Vestry fall into financial trouble, the home can be seized by Sistus, with little recourse or security from homelessness for whatever tenant may be renting the property.<\/p>\n<p>Moyles currently has a case before An Bord Plean\u00e1la, which was lodged in October of 2024. The case concerns an application for a fire safety certificate for a property he leases at 21 Denmark Street, Dublin 1. The case file reads \u201cfor material change of use from flats\/bedsits to B&amp;B rooms with other material alterations\u201d<em>.<\/em> This is precisely what Dublin does <em>not<\/em> need: more B&amp;Bs at the expense of permanent residences.<\/p>\n<p>When I visited the property it was clear that work was ongoing in the building. Stacks of rubbish were piled high next to it, and the door was bolted shut with two heavy padlocks. This property \u2013 a listed building built in c.1790 \u2013 is not owned by Vestry, Moyles, or other associated entities. The building\u2019s Land Registry file shows that it is currently held under a leasehold from a company by the name of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/offshoreleaks.icij.org\/nodes\/55081513\">Dubres Strategies Limited<\/a><\/span>. This company is not registered in Ireland, but Malta, according to leaked documents found in the Paradise Papers. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/paradise-papers\/\">The Paradise Papers<\/a><\/span> is a global investigation into the offshore activities of some of the world\u2019s most powerful people and companies, led by The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. A man named Rodney Lee Berger is Dubres Strategies Limited\u2019s director. He and Corinne Hilary Berger are directors of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/ie.globaldatabase.com\/company\/dubres-capital-limited\">Dubres Capital Limited<\/a><\/span>, a company incorporated in the Republic of Ireland, with an address at 13 North Great George\u2019s Street, a stone\u2019s throw from the property at 21 Denmark Street.<\/p>\n<p>Vestry\u2019s purchase of Jen\u2019s apartment was not the first time Moyles had cause to deal with Grant Thornton, in their capacity as receivers. In 2011, when Moyles was a director of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solocheck.ie\/Irish-Company\/Shelbourne-Development-Europe-Limited-365037\">Shelbourne Development (Europe) Limited<\/a><\/span>, The Bank of Scotland appointed Grant Thornton as receiver. According to the receiver\u2019s abstract submitted to the Companies Registry Office, dated 18\/12\/2019, Grant Thornton collated receipts of \u20ac33,511,913. In 2014, National Asset Loan Management Limited appointed Mazars as receivers to Moyles&#8217; <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vision-net.ie\/Company-Info\/Shelbourne-Properties-Limited-263538\">Shelbourne Properties Limited<\/a><\/span>. Remarkably, this is a different entity to Shelbourne Development (Europe) Limited. According to the receiver\u2019s abstract presented by Mazars, they took control of \u20ac23,975,661.56 of assets associated with the former company. It\u2019s strange how the same man can be a supporting character in the downfall of one property giant, dust himself off, and appear on the other side of the ledger, purchasing a stressed asset from the very same receiver who had previously confiscated his holdings. As Mac from the 2005 comedy TV series \u2018It\u2019s always Sunny in Philadelphia\u2019 put it: \u201cI\u2019m playing both sides, so I always come out on top!\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17602\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17602\" style=\"width: 388px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-17602 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Chicago_Spire.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"388\" height=\"256\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17602\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist&#8217;s impression of the &#8216;Chicago Spire&#8217;.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Moyles shared his directorship in both companies with <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.ie\/business\/commercial-property\/garrett-kelleher-pursuing-nama-for-12bn-over-chicago-spire-project\/36666295.html\">Garrett Kelleher<\/a><\/span>, who tried to sue NAMA for $1.2billion in a U.S. court, after his Anglo-Irish Bank-funded \u201cChicago Spire\u201d vanity project failed to get off the ground. In 2009, prior the\u00a0 resignation of Chris O\u2019Connell as the head of Shelbourne Development (Europe) Ltd, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/o-connell-to-leave-shelbourne-developments-1.779303\">O\u2019Connell told the Irish Times<\/a><\/span>: \u201cIn the short term it\u2019s (referring to the establishment of NAMA) going to mean uncertainty for developers, bankers and investors alike, but it\u2019s the key to the resurrection of this market over the next decade and it\u2019s going to generate significant business opportunities at a number of different levels,\u201d. And indeed, the offloading of bad loans from the bankers\u2019 books by NAMA has created significant business opportunities. It could certainly be argued that this mechanism has allowed Moyles, Kelleher, Dowling and the crew to continue their honest work as lowly property moguls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe doesn\u2019t want to leave\u201d, Jen told me, \u201che has his swimming lessons here, he has his little pals, his little life is going to be disrupted\u201d. We must confront Jen and Danny\u2019s reality, and the reality for some 15,286 people currently in homeless accommodation in this \u201cRepublic\u201d, 4,653 of whom are children, with countless more contending with crippling rents, inflated high prices and <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/dublininquirer.com\/2025\/04\/02\/in-hundreds-of-apartments-rented-out-by-the-same-company-renters-are-on-licences-with-few-rights\/?utm_campaign=feed&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=later-linkinbio&amp;fbclid=PAY2xjawJbL4lleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABpstbQjAw8Khy2_9tvZzirmbWikWKdqih9J2_gtSvyRFS8TVhwbsAuU271g_aem_IfLFwjl0O7MUX_kZWnCLhw\">insecure tenancies<\/a><\/span>. If this is a \u201cgood problem to have\u201d, who is it good for? Certainly not those people, and certainly not those paying exorbitant rent for mouldy studios. Is the problem housing supply, that \u201cIreland is Full\u201d, or something else entirely? When we start asking the right questions we may start putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Once we establish, as a basic cultural norm, that little Danny\u2019s right to a roof should take precedence over Moyles&#8217; right to make money from that roof, then, we might start excavating what is rotten about Irish housing. Until then, the carousel of real estate investment will keep turning, and little Danny and his mother will remain on the sidelines, not knowing what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vestry\u00a0 \/\u02c8v\u025bstri\/\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Noun a room or building attached to a church, used as an office and for changing into ceremonial vestments. a real estate investment trust (REIT), incorporated in the Republic of Ireland. There comes a moment when you discover a person the trajectory of whose business affairs appears to embody the rotten nature of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[320,854,1403,1512,1831,2112,2948,3103,4187,4491,4566,6391,8922,9328,9407,9818],"class_list":["post-17595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-affairs","tag-be-lettings","tag-cassandra-voices-housing","tag-catu","tag-community-action-tenants-union","tag-current","tag-emobiment-of-irelands-housing-crisis","tag-exit","tag-housing","tag-irelands-housing-crisis","tag-irish-housing-crisis","tag-nama","tag-the","tag-the-vestry-general-partner-dac","tag-through","tag-vestry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}