The Irish Prime Minister and Buy-to-Let

We should be grateful for small mercies. At least, our Prime Minister didn't dive into the Leeds buy-to-let market. From today's Times:

Brian Cowen, the Irish prime minister, is facing legal action in the English courts over his ownership of a buy-to-let flat which his landlords say he is illegally sub-letting to Leeds University.

Mr Cowen is part of a group of Irish investors who invested in a block of “student cluster apartments” designed and built as a hall of residence in the city. The Newcastle-based freeholder is seeking payment of ground rents and management fees from the Irish group believed to be more than £100,000.

The disclosure of the legal tangle over his British investment property will be highly embarrassing to the Taoiseach as he struggles to navigate the Irish economy and national banks through the worst financial crisis in decades.