Two former Bankwest customers, Elie and Norma Khoury, have failed in their attempt to defeat action by Commonwealth Bank to put them into receivership and take possession of their family home. They failed to impress the judge in the Supreme Court of New South Wales after allegedly defaulting on a bundle of mortgages and business loans secured by property.Justice Ian Harrison ruled that the arguments mounted by the Khourys to prevent CBA taking possession of their residential home were "hopeless" and, therefore, the case should be discontinued.The Khourys raised a number of wide-ranging arguments, starting with the "carve-out" and "claw-back" agreements that were in place when CBA acquired all the Bankwest assets in 2008.Their main argument was that as none of their agreements met CBA's prudential or lending criteria at the time it acquired Bankwest, these loans were excluded from the purchase price paid (carve-out), or were the subject of a price adjustment allowed to CBA (claw-back) on acquisition. Hence, the CBA group suffered no loss on these loans. Further, as the CBA had acquired the business of Bankwest "at a substantial discount to market value", and stood to claim a large tax deduction by writing off the loans, the Khourys argued that CBA stood to become "unjustly enriched" if it recovered the debt claimed against them. This series of arguments was termed "hopeless" by the judge. It also set up the Khourys to be asked, what the judge said was "the obvious question": if the transfer of assets was ineffective as alleged, how is it that the defendants are not liable to honour their payment obligations to the successor in law of Bankwest, namely, CBA?"Further, the [CBA's counsel said] that the notion that a borrower might escape repayment obligations because the lender might enjoy a tax saving in the event of non-payment is a pleading tantamount to closing the barn gate after the cart has bolted," the judge said.It was further alleged by the CBA that as the Khourys defaulted by failing to make all the repayments required under the loan agreements, the bank was seeking to take over possession of the property, the Khourys' residential home, as a result of these defaults.