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losing it all
Cork councillor slept in car after bank repossessed his home last month
Joe Harris, who lost his home to repossession, is now living with family.
A CORK POLITICIAN who previously ran three businesses has had his home repossessed.
Councillor Joe Harris said he was forced to vacate the house last month after falling behind on mortgage payments with his bank.
Harris told RTÉ’s Today With Sean O’Rourke that he had a good standard of living before the recession and owned several houses.
At the height of the boom, he ran a successful auctioneering firm with five offices and an annual wage bill of over €1 million, as well as a mortage business and insurance company.
“When the confidence went out of the market, people seemed to pull out of deals you had banked on. That caused a domino effect,” he said.
Harris said he lost everything after his bank refused to continue financing him and closed his account, leaving him unable to pay staff.
“Even though I had some limited companies, I had to sign personal guarantees on most of them so all the debt fell on me,” he said.
Hospitalised
Harris told presenter Sean O’Rourke that he was effectively left without any income after his companies were liquidated.
He was unable to draw on social welfare but received around €160 a week in community welfare payments.
His financial difficulties eventually took a toll on both his mental health and family life, he said.
“You don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, and every day is a battle to get up out of bed and face it. Some days you can’t do it.”
He suffered a nervous breakdown, was hospitalised for four weeks and then saw his marriage collapse in 2009.
Now, Harris faces another challenge after losing his home. He told RTÉ he intended to apply for council housing but was staying in a room in his brother’s house as a short-term measure.
“It’s awkward … The other night I had to sleep in the car because he had family coming in,” he said.
Harris was elected to Cork County Council in 2014 and said he was happy to be able to use his experience to connect with constituents.
“I found I was good at telling my story. They got a lift out of it,” he said.
People would say: ‘I’m not that bad at all compared to you.’ It used to cheer people up sometimes so I decided to start to try to help others because I had nothing else to offer, really.
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