CU loan was to help with deposit.
That absolutely won't fly.
We borrowed from the CU for our first home, not that we told either the CU or the bank!
There was a time you could get away with this, because CUs didn't write to the old credit register. They do now. CUs were particularly badly stung in the bust.
I think there's a number of issues here. I will of course get some things wrong so feel free to correct.
1. He has outstanding debt from many years ago that's quite large and still on the credit register.
2. He's about to inherit 90k
3. He doesn't own a home
4. But he only earns 40k
5. And unless he lives in Donegal or Leitrim, house prices are not 70k. Or 170k. Not even a "small apartment." A "small apartment" in Limerick for example starts at 190k and that's the asking price, not counting a bidding war. There's a couple of apartments for sale on daft in Letterkenny for 135k, so he could consider moving to Donegal.
6. Its theoretically possible to buy an apartment in Dublin in a less in demand area for maybe 200-220k, assuming nobody else bids.
7. He's 53 and working in public sector so assume he is subject to mandatory retirement age of 70. That limits his maximum mortgage term to 16 or 17 years for most lenders. Some of them will not extend him more than a 12-13 year term.
8. Assuming if he doesn't own a home he's renting and that would be taken into account when applying for a loan.
9. If he wants to buy himself a little apartment for 220k he has also to take account legal costs etc of around 5k plus for LPT, stamp duty, registration fees and legal costs. If he goes to a bank with 22k deposit and doesn't have that they'll basically tell him to "go away". (I experienced this personally with much larger savings and a lot more income).
10. There's a few things here - how much he theoretically can borrow given his income, and how long a term given his age - that's before his creditworthiness, which seems poor - that's probably around 138k taking into account the maximum the bank would consider he can afford on his salary of 40k and how much he earns. This is why nearly everyone who owns a home buys it before their 50th birthday, its not just your income but maximum term and how much the bank believes you have after tax to pay. It cannot exceed 1/3 of take home pay.
11. Lastly, and hate to truly burst his bubble here, but unless you are buying in an in demand area most banks demand a 20% deposit for 1 bed apartments (its hard to state just how much damage gets done by this policy but that's for another topic). That will not be Donegal or probably not Limerick. I know PTSB would be ok with 10% for Swords (but that was at least 5 years ago and a one bed in Swords is now over 250k).
May I suggest something else? Given his age, situation, he technically qualifies for social housing. He won't get it, but it would be looked at in the event of him applying for cost rental or affordable housing schemes. I would suggest he scours the cost rental site every month as this would give him a secure tenancy he could probably afford. Secondly pay off that old loan with the 90k inheritance. He'll have to wait 5 years yes, but there's reasons you might need credit other than for a mortgage - eg car breaks down. In his situation cost rental would definitely be a potential option.