Government to pay mortgage arrears *Mod Note in Opening Post*

on_my_oe

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/taxpayers-to-bail-out-those-in-mortgage-arrears-plan-31135507.html

The government is going to pay the mortgage arrears to ensure families remain in their homes; banks will restructure the mortgage and they'll receive a 'top up' payment using taxpayers money.

Every time I think Ireland can't find a new way to screw over the decent and hardworking, I'm surprised and disappointed. I lived in an apartment where the landlord didn't pay the mortgage for over five years, pocketing the rent money. We then lost our security deposit in the repossession process.
We now own and pay a higher variable rate because of those on tracker mortgages and we don't benefit from any mortgage interest rebates. We struggle hard to pay our mortgage, so why the <beep> should I now pay someone else's too?

If you can't restructure your mortgage and its unsustainable, you lose your home and you rent.

Mod Notes:

Folks, just a couple of things:
* can you please keep in mind this is A&P, not the politics or the economics forum, try stay within the remit of this forum.
* please don't personalise your posts towards others, this is a general discussion so posters own situations shouldn't be jumped on and judged.
* can you curtail the profanities please, there is absolutely no need to use foul language to express yourself in this forum.
*attack the post, not the poster.

Don't breach the charter, if in doubt re-read it.

snubbleste

I don't feel well.

Kaizersoze81

If this happens I'm leaving this country for good. Fcuking joke. Another slap in the face to people who worked hard and did the right thing struggling to pay their mortgage.
Can't afford your mortgage? Move someplace you can then.

LeinsterDub

Had to check the publication date wasn't April 1st. Joke idea

How much is that upcoming election in the window. The one fg/lab think is for sale?

soccercrew

Isn't this just a way of helping struggling families. You people always go on about the government not helping families but when they do, you go on another rant- but what about me! Listen, were all in a fcuked up situation, live in a capitalist society so you just have to take the rough with the smooth. I bet you people never ranted when you got your wee slice of the cake!

zagmund

What I don't get is the continued rattling on the radio and in the newspapers about "ow-er cultural aversion to evictions" and how this colours all sorts of political & economic decisions.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have my own cultural aversion to paying way over the odds because the banks . . . well, just because they can charge what they want to the people who *do* pay to make up for the losses accruing from all the others who aren't paying.

As an aside, I thought we cleared out all the losses into NAMA or something so that the banks which remained would be starting off with "good" debts. You know the whole good bank/bad bank thing.

z

on_my_oe

soccercrew wrote: »

Isn't this just a way of helping struggling families. You people always go on about the government not helping families but when they do, you go on another rant- but what about me! Listen, were all in a fcuked up situation, live in a capitalist society so you just have to take the rough with the smooth. I bet you people never ranted when you got your wee slice of the cake!

We never got a slice of cake, we just keep working to pay for all the ingredients.

It's called personal responsibility. If you can't afford it, you don't get it. If you can't afford home ownership, you don't get to own a house, you rent. Why would a family earning average wage saving for a deposit bother? They might as well throw in the towel

Kaizersoze81

At least I know what to do during the next boom. Borrow as much as I can buy the biggest house I can then don't pay the mortgage when things go bad. Sure the tax payer will bail me out. Joke of a country.

Kidchameleon

Kaizersoze81 wrote: »

If this happens I'm leaving this country for good. Fcuking joke. Another slap in the face to people who worked hard and did the right thing struggling to pay their mortgage.
Can't afford your mortgage? Move someplace you can then.

So you'll leave the country if an ordinary Joe Soap gets help but you never had a problem when millionaire bankers & developers got their debts written off?

soccercrew

on_my_oe wrote: »

We never got a slice of cake, we just keep working to pay for all the ingredients.

It's called personal responsibility. If you can't afford it, you don't get it. If you can't afford home ownership, you don't get to own a house, you rent. Why would a family earning average wage saving for a deposit bother? They might as well throw in the towel

O yes you did! You got lower taxes, lower interest rates, better living standards etc.. I could go on but I think you get the jest. Yes you mightn't have gotbwhat others did but your life benefited throughout the years but you are jealous others are getting more.

Villa05

Kaos and anarchy if this is brought in

Eugene Norman

Villa05 wrote: »

Kaos and anarchy if this is brought in

Not at all. Screwing the rental sector is the basis of modern Irish economics.

RecordStraight

Kidchameleon wrote: »

So you'll leave the country if an ordinary Joe Soap gets help but you never had a problem when millionaire bankers & developers got their debts written off?

Well there's a pretty random straw man.

We could be looking at a situation where the people who thought it was too risky to buy back in the bubble - the smart, cautious people - who opted to rent are now going to see their tax money going to the reckless, foolish people who outbid them back in the day. The people who actually drove up the prices to crazy levels.

You couldn't make this sh!t up.

Villa05

Banks are cunning and clever. Push all the reposessions out until a year before an election knowing weak politicians will buckle and submit and transfer more taxpayer's money to parasite banks.

To any politician reading this. Stand up and be counted. Enough is enough.

galljga1

In a statement to the Indo, Brian O'Donnell says he is delighted to be given the opportunity to return to his former home 'Gorse Hill' thanks to the kindness of the Irish taxpayer.

JustTheOne

About time people woke up and stopped blaming the government for the state of the country.

The people who wrecklessly borrowed are just as much to blame as the banks.

FG left to pick up the mess.

Eugene Norman

RecordStraight wrote: »

Well there's a pretty random straw man.

We could be looking at a situation where the people who thought it was too risky to buy back in the bubble - the smart, cautious people - who opted to rent are now going to see their tax money going to the reckless, foolish people who outbid them back in the day. The people who actually drove up the prices to crazy levels.

You couldn't make this sh!t up.

Sentiment in the journal comment section agrees with you. This will keep non-repossessed house holders happy at the expense of taxpayers, people who have been paying their mortgages, and specifically the rental sector.

Furthermore why are the arrears figures not changing if the economy is improving. Will we have people paying mortgages on small houses and the imprudent -- regardless of a change of circumstances -- keeping mortgages in 4 bedroomed houses in SCD?

ziggyman17

want about the people who are repaying their mortgage, but are living on the breadline?? will they get a help out?? no chance.. I'd say their is a lot of people deliberately not meeting their repayments..........

RecordStraight

ziggyman17 wrote: »

want about the people who are repaying their mortgage, but are living on the breadline?? will they get a help out?? no chance.. I'd say their is a lot of people deliberately not meeting their repayments..........

If there is any way that you are struggling, or even making some compromises on your lifestyle, to meet your mortgage, you'd be mad to keep paying it under this proposal. Stop paying, get a sweeter deal from the bank, and spend the extra money on holidays and whatnot, courtesy of the tax payer.

A clever way to increase the number of strategic defaulters. I've never received a satisfactory explanation as to why our rate of default was so much worse than Spain and even Greece.

Amirani

Villa05 wrote: »

Banks are cunning and clever. Push all the reposessions out until a year before an election knowing weak politicians will buckle and submit and transfer more taxpayer's money to parasite banks.

Or maybe it's something got to do with the fact that property prices have risen to a level that make the economic value of house repossessions viable? Seems more sensible than your reasoning.

Amirani

zagmund wrote: »

As an aside, I thought we cleared out all the losses into NAMA or something so that the banks which remained would be starting off with "good" debts. You know the whole good bank/bad bank thing.

z

NAMA has dealt mostly with commercial real-estate and large scale residential developments. They haven't been buying individual residential mortgages to any great degree.

Amirani

soccercrew wrote: »

Listen, were all in a fcuked up situation, live in a capitalist society so you just have to take the rough with the smooth. I bet you people never ranted when you got your wee slice of the cake!

I think the point is that this is in no way capitalist, despite as you say, we live in a predominantly capitalist society. Removing moral hazard and unjustly interfering with a perfectly normal market mechanism (foreclosure) doesn't really make sense in such a system.

Villa05

Diego Simeone wrote:

Of maybe it's something got to do with the fact that property prices have risen to a level that make the economic value of house repossessions viable? Seems more sensible than your reasoning.

We do have recordings of how the banks think. Skin in the game and all that. My theory is just as much valid as yours.

It's about power, positioning and using it to maximum advantage and to hell with the consquences.

Recovery in property prices only help banks in Dublin and a few other select markets around the country.
An election on the other hand is nationwide.

Mr. teddywinkles

Kidchameleon wrote: »

So you'll leave the country if an ordinary Joe Soap gets help but you never had a problem when millionaire bankers & developers got their debts written off?

Why would anyone working hard paying their mortgage bother anymore and say fook this ill say I cant pay. The taxpayer will pay for my home
This is just loony.

Atlantic Dawn

People bought houses at prices they knew in their own head were not affordable yet they signed up once they could get access to money, this pushed the prices up and up so people with any sense held off buying. Now that they are in trouble they want their mortgage covered and the government want to maintain the house prices leaving those who had sense to not only pick up the tab for the mistakes of others but they are prevented from buying a house because the prices have been artifically controlled by keeping the basket case arrears houses off the market.

dissed doc

on_my_oe wrote: »

We now own and pay a higher variable rate because of those on tracker mortgages and we don't benefit from any mortgage interest rebates.

you pay a higher rate than a lower rate because that was what you agreed to at the time of signing. The risk that a tracker goes to 10% is still there. I assume you will be campaiging for variable rate holders to subsidise trackers who struggle if they have to pay double what your mortgage is.

If you don't like the term of the loan, don't borrow. You do not have an entitlement to move backwards and forwards through time to compare your situation with someone else and decide hypothetically that you were hard done by. You are not subsidising anyone.

I also paid 10 euro for a burger once and the person after me paid 8. I feel he should give me a euro to compensate me?

RecordStraight

dissed doc wrote: »

you pay a higher rate than a lower rate because that was what you agreed to at the time of signing. The risk that a tracker goes to 10% is still there. I assume you will be campaiging for variable rate holders to subsidise trackers who struggle if they have to pay double what your mortgage is.

Agreed.

I think the notion that variable rates are so high because trackers are so low is a myth. The reason variable rates (the only rates available now) are so high is because banks have to factor in that if you don't bother paying back your mortgage, the chances of actually repossessing your house are tiny. So it's unsecured lending.

No security means that rates have to be much higher to compensate for risk. Another way that everybody is being screwed over to keep people in property they cannot afford.

on_my_oe

I looked at the price, the interest rates and agreed to the terms. That included paying my mortgage repayment in exchange for (eventually) owning my home outright.

Those in arrears did the same, and by that argument they don't want to pay the price they don't get to keep the goods.

bjork

This is the craziest thing I have heard in a long time. We are paying half of them already through social welfare.

Under the proposal, the Government would offer ongoing State support to homeowners who cannot afford to repay their debts in order to allow them to retain ownership of their properties.
Banks would have to agree to restructure the mortgage. In return they would receive a State top-up repayment.

And everyone else gets screwed

bjork

ziggyman17 wrote: »

want about the people who are repaying their mortgage, but are living on the breadline?? will they get a help out?? no chance.. I'd say their is a lot of people deliberately not meeting their repayments..........

Perhaps they need to stop paying and jump on this gravy train?

Eugene Norman

RecordStraight wrote: »

Agreed.

I think the notion that variable rates are so high because trackers are so low is a myth. The reason variable rates (the only rates available now) are so high is because banks have to factor in that if you don't bother paying back your mortgage, the chances of actually repossessing your house are tiny. So it's unsecured lending.

No security means that rates have to be much higher to compensate for risk. Another way that everybody is being screwed over to keep people in property they cannot afford.

Your second point is very good. The CB head said trackers were breaking even but what was causing the banks to not be in a position to lower rates was arrears.

It's not either or. Most people who bought in the boom got tracker mortgages. Most are paying it back. Some people are not. Given that the cost of servicing was reduced anyway and that the banks countenanced interest only repayments I think there are a lot of strategic defaulters.