Here the full text in case some of you don’t know how to get around the paywall:
A burgeoning Irish property empire headed by a controversial landlord who evicted tenants and put their flats on Airbnb leads back to this neat family home on an unassuming suburban street in Luxembourg.
Through a confusing constellation of Irish companies, landlord Marc Godart (34) manages a vast property portfolio encompassing flats in Borrisokane, land in Mangan and a range of Dublin properties including Reuben House, the apartment block from which tenants were evicted last year only to see their old rooms go up on Airbnb without planning permission not long after.
But one address occurs again and again in the company records as the headquarters of the various companies that own Godart’s firms or provide them with cash.
It’s this red-tiled cottage with a neat lawn in front, where I find Marc Godart’s father, René, sweeping the driveway.
The railway worker and the web of companies
Born where the western tip of landlocked Luxembourg meets Belgium and France, René Godart was a 48-year-old employee of the Luxembourg train company CFL when he established Marede Sci as a real-estate company in March 2001.
He took a majority stake in the fledgling firm and was allocated 51 shares while his wife Denise Wester, who was represented through power of attorney, was granted 49.
Marede Sci was to be the first of a string of companies registered to their comfortable cottage home in the Luxembourg district of Hesperange, which has developed over the years into a wealthy suburb of the capital that retains some rural charm.
A respectable local figure, René is the vice-president of a tourism syndicate dedicated to promoting the town campsite to visitors as a “haven of peace” amid nature close to Luxembourg city.
His son Marc was born in 1989.
Alongside the Godart-Wester surnames, the family postbox bears the titles of the various companies associated with this address which hold interests in property in Ireland and beyond: Itzig Sarl, Syren SA and Hesper SA.
What seem like random, anonymous names for companies in an Irish context suddenly come to make sense when walking the nearby streets.
Itzig is the name of a neighbouring village and the road that leads to it. A few paces away, Rue de Syren runs to the village of Syren off to the east.
Denise, from a local farming family made prominent when one of its members found love on a reality television show, was described as a housewife and her name given as Godart-Wester when she cofounded Hesper SA with René in 2001, equally splitting the shares 50/50.
The name they chose then appears to take after another local road name and the encompassing municipality of Hesperange or, as it’s called in the family’s native Luxembourgish, Hesper.
[ Landlord used rooms for Airbnb with tenants still in house ]
The young scion
Marc Godart was still a student when he was first named to a company role in family business Hesper SA in the summer of 2007, not long after his 18th birthday.
Marc Godart’s LinkedIn profile suggests he began his university studies the following year at the University of Luxembourg, before switching to study economics at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. A student magazine shows him, then aged 23, earnestly dressed in a grey suit taking part in an event for undergraduates interested in finance.
A fellow alumnus described the finance club students as an “eager and ambitious” crowd who were focused on getting hands-on business experience alongside their studies.
Annual accounts suggest Marc Godart already had an in. In 2011 he was listed as the auditor of the annual accounts of Hesper SA. Its board of directors were listed as Denise Godart-Wester, Robert Godart, and Marede Sci, with assets of €1.5 million. Denise Godart-Wester was stated to have lent the firm €316,402.40.
When Ireland experienced its profound housing crash in the wake of the global financial crisis, the family heard through an Irish acquaintance that there might be good opportunities to buy.
This was a time when hundreds of distressed Irish properties were being sold at once in mass auctions at severe discounts to their previously estimated value, drawing in international investors attracted by slashed stamp duty rates. An apartment in Temple Bar was listed with a reserve price of €80,000 at one auction in 2011; a four-bed mews house in Ballsbridge sold for €550,000.
“It was like the Klondike gold rush. The Americans bought, private people, hedge funds,” one international investor recalls of the time. “In Ireland nobody could buy, because the banks were not giving out any loans.”
Marc Godart had done an internship and briefly worked at a Luxembourg embassy before he founded ‘GL Invest’ in Dublin 2014, according to his profile.
After pursuing a PhD qualification in Maastricht, over time he increasingly took charge of the family’s Irish investments from his father, continuing to accumulate properties.
“I asked him: where are you getting all this money? Because I knew he was buying all these properties – I asked him is it institutional money or family money,” a person who knew him recalls.
“And he said: it’s family money.”
The names of companies with interests in Irish and international property, Itzig Sarl, Hesper SA, and Syren SA, on the letter box of the Godart-Wester house (2)
“The family heard through an Irish acquaintance”
This kind of disgusts me that an Irish person was partly responsible for this.
If you google “Marc Godart Luxembourg” the first 2 and half pages are all articles from different sources writing about The Controversial Landlord. This dude is now, probably the most referenced guy in Luxembourg. Shameful popularity, still…popularity.
Strictly-speaking, I don’t see anything “wrong” here. They’re a family, making calculated financial decisions that leave little room for sympathy or emotional reason—fair enough, but this is not “wrong” per se
They have numerous disputes pending in Irish courts, which are indeed the proper avenue for these disputes to be heard
Ireland is the single-best market to be a landlord in, in Europe* Enough people are able to do the math and come to that conclusion, but this family actually took action. Now the spoils are theirs to reap…
**In Luxembourg, you’d own an €800k property and be able to let it out for €3500 a month. In Ireland, a €400k property rents out for the same amount (a few years ago you had people renting rural €250k properties to Intel/HP executives for €3000 …)*
Edit: also, it’s not just Luxembourgers seeing this opportunity. Families as far away as China and Myanmar have Dublin real estate portfolios. The business case is just too good to pass
I prefer this article and its conclusion: *In conclusion, the controversy surrounding this landlord and their properties raises important questions about the ethical responsibilities of property owners and the role of* [*international*](https://www.world-today-news.com/tag/international/) *tax havens in facilitating questionable property investments. While there may be no easy solution to these complex issues, it is clear that greater transparency and accountability are needed to ensure that the rights and well-being of tenants are prioritized over profits. As we continue to engage with these critical debates, it is our hope that fair and sustainable practices will be prioritized in the* [*world*](https://www.world-today-news.com/category/world/) *of property ownership and investment.*
5 comments
Here the full text in case some of you don’t know how to get around the paywall:
A burgeoning Irish property empire headed by a controversial landlord who evicted tenants and put their flats on Airbnb leads back to this neat family home on an unassuming suburban street in Luxembourg.
Through a confusing constellation of Irish companies, landlord Marc Godart (34) manages a vast property portfolio encompassing flats in Borrisokane, land in Mangan and a range of Dublin properties including Reuben House, the apartment block from which tenants were evicted last year only to see their old rooms go up on Airbnb without planning permission not long after.
But one address occurs again and again in the company records as the headquarters of the various companies that own Godart’s firms or provide them with cash.
It’s this red-tiled cottage with a neat lawn in front, where I find Marc Godart’s father, René, sweeping the driveway.
The railway worker and the web of companies
Born where the western tip of landlocked Luxembourg meets Belgium and France, René Godart was a 48-year-old employee of the Luxembourg train company CFL when he established Marede Sci as a real-estate company in March 2001.
He took a majority stake in the fledgling firm and was allocated 51 shares while his wife Denise Wester, who was represented through power of attorney, was granted 49.
Marede Sci was to be the first of a string of companies registered to their comfortable cottage home in the Luxembourg district of Hesperange, which has developed over the years into a wealthy suburb of the capital that retains some rural charm.
A respectable local figure, René is the vice-president of a tourism syndicate dedicated to promoting the town campsite to visitors as a “haven of peace” amid nature close to Luxembourg city.
His son Marc was born in 1989.
Alongside the Godart-Wester surnames, the family postbox bears the titles of the various companies associated with this address which hold interests in property in Ireland and beyond: Itzig Sarl, Syren SA and Hesper SA.
What seem like random, anonymous names for companies in an Irish context suddenly come to make sense when walking the nearby streets.
Itzig is the name of a neighbouring village and the road that leads to it. A few paces away, Rue de Syren runs to the village of Syren off to the east.
Denise, from a local farming family made prominent when one of its members found love on a reality television show, was described as a housewife and her name given as Godart-Wester when she cofounded Hesper SA with René in 2001, equally splitting the shares 50/50.
The name they chose then appears to take after another local road name and the encompassing municipality of Hesperange or, as it’s called in the family’s native Luxembourgish, Hesper.
[ Landlord used rooms for Airbnb with tenants still in house ]
The young scion
Marc Godart was still a student when he was first named to a company role in family business Hesper SA in the summer of 2007, not long after his 18th birthday.
Marc Godart’s LinkedIn profile suggests he began his university studies the following year at the University of Luxembourg, before switching to study economics at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. A student magazine shows him, then aged 23, earnestly dressed in a grey suit taking part in an event for undergraduates interested in finance.
A fellow alumnus described the finance club students as an “eager and ambitious” crowd who were focused on getting hands-on business experience alongside their studies.
Annual accounts suggest Marc Godart already had an in. In 2011 he was listed as the auditor of the annual accounts of Hesper SA. Its board of directors were listed as Denise Godart-Wester, Robert Godart, and Marede Sci, with assets of €1.5 million. Denise Godart-Wester was stated to have lent the firm €316,402.40.
When Ireland experienced its profound housing crash in the wake of the global financial crisis, the family heard through an Irish acquaintance that there might be good opportunities to buy.
This was a time when hundreds of distressed Irish properties were being sold at once in mass auctions at severe discounts to their previously estimated value, drawing in international investors attracted by slashed stamp duty rates. An apartment in Temple Bar was listed with a reserve price of €80,000 at one auction in 2011; a four-bed mews house in Ballsbridge sold for €550,000.
“It was like the Klondike gold rush. The Americans bought, private people, hedge funds,” one international investor recalls of the time. “In Ireland nobody could buy, because the banks were not giving out any loans.”
Marc Godart had done an internship and briefly worked at a Luxembourg embassy before he founded ‘GL Invest’ in Dublin 2014, according to his profile.
After pursuing a PhD qualification in Maastricht, over time he increasingly took charge of the family’s Irish investments from his father, continuing to accumulate properties.
“I asked him: where are you getting all this money? Because I knew he was buying all these properties – I asked him is it institutional money or family money,” a person who knew him recalls.
“And he said: it’s family money.”
The names of companies with interests in Irish and international property, Itzig Sarl, Hesper SA, and Syren SA, on the letter box of the Godart-Wester house (2)
“The family heard through an Irish acquaintance”
This kind of disgusts me that an Irish person was partly responsible for this.
If you google “Marc Godart Luxembourg” the first 2 and half pages are all articles from different sources writing about The Controversial Landlord. This dude is now, probably the most referenced guy in Luxembourg. Shameful popularity, still…popularity.
Strictly-speaking, I don’t see anything “wrong” here. They’re a family, making calculated financial decisions that leave little room for sympathy or emotional reason—fair enough, but this is not “wrong” per se
They have numerous disputes pending in Irish courts, which are indeed the proper avenue for these disputes to be heard
Ireland is the single-best market to be a landlord in, in Europe* Enough people are able to do the math and come to that conclusion, but this family actually took action. Now the spoils are theirs to reap…
**In Luxembourg, you’d own an €800k property and be able to let it out for €3500 a month. In Ireland, a €400k property rents out for the same amount (a few years ago you had people renting rural €250k properties to Intel/HP executives for €3000 …)*
Edit: also, it’s not just Luxembourgers seeing this opportunity. Families as far away as China and Myanmar have Dublin real estate portfolios. The business case is just too good to pass
I prefer this article and its conclusion: *In conclusion, the controversy surrounding this landlord and their properties raises important questions about the ethical responsibilities of property owners and the role of* [*international*](https://www.world-today-news.com/tag/international/) *tax havens in facilitating questionable property investments. While there may be no easy solution to these complex issues, it is clear that greater transparency and accountability are needed to ensure that the rights and well-being of tenants are prioritized over profits. As we continue to engage with these critical debates, it is our hope that fair and sustainable practices will be prioritized in the* [*world*](https://www.world-today-news.com/category/world/) *of property ownership and investment.*
​
[*https://www.world-today-news.com/luxembourgs-marc-godart-and-his-property-investment-ventures-in-ireland/*](https://www.world-today-news.com/luxembourgs-marc-godart-and-his-property-investment-ventures-in-ireland/)