Geisha Kow­lessar

For­mer In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) chair­man Robin Mon­tano yes­ter­day paid a six-fig­ure num­ber to the T&T Mort­gage Fi­nance Com­pa­ny (TTMF) to re­gain his Mar­aval home.In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day Mon­tano said "all the out­stand­ing monies and pa­per­work" were sent to the TTMF yes­ter­day and it was just a mat­ter of the bank dot­ting the "Is" and cross­ing the "Ts."He re­fused to dis­close the ex­act amount he paid."I have done every­thing that I need­ed to do and now it is up to the bank to give me back the keys," Mon­tano said.

Bailiffs moved on­to Mon­tano's prop­er­ty on Mon­day for his fail­ure to pay ar­rears on a mort­gage.In­sist­ing that the mat­ter could have been han­dled in a more hu­mane man­ner by the TTMF, Mon­tano said he was giv­en an "oral as­sur­ance" that his dead­line date from De­cem­ber last year would have been ex­tend­ed to March this year."I told the bank I had a big case com­ing up in March which would have more than paid out the en­tire mort­gage.

"I was giv­en the as­sur­ance that I would get an ex­ten­sion. The en­tire in­ci­dent took me by sur­prise," Mon­tano added.He said his broth­er, Dan­ny, a for­mer pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, called the TTMF yes­ter­day in­form­ing it that all the nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion which was need­ed was ready.Mon­tano said the TTMF did not re­turn the call un­til around 2 pm yes­ter­day."If they had one ounce of hu­man kind­ness in them they would have called much ear­li­er so I would have got­ten back my keys to­day (yes­ter­day).

"But I don't ex­pect them to de­lay me any fur­ther than Thurs­day," Mon­tano added.Calls to TTMF's chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer In­grid Lash­ley went unan­swered yes­ter­day. Mes­sages al­so were not re­turned.