Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council charged .598% of the Mort. amount

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learnwell

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People who have a mortgage with a Local Authority are charged .598% of the Mort. amount for mort. protection cover (eg people with a shared ownership
or affordable housing arrangement). They are not allowed to source mort.
pro.elsewhere. Local Authorities say both the rate and the rules are set by the
Dept. of Environment. Mort.Pro on 100,000 at .598% is 598Euro per year or
49.83 per month. A 35yr old male non smoker can get cover for this amount
for about 10Euro per month, ie 5 times less(if he was allowed to.) Can anyone explain?
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

HI,

I also raised this question a while back on this page. MY TD raised it as a parliamentary question in the Dail last month and nothing came of it. The law was set it 1986! Ridiculous!!

I have contacted the Ombudsman which is all we can do in this case.

So query it with them then contact the Ombudsman........more people need to complain in this case
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

I have the same insurance - i wanted to downgrade to a cheaper more basic policy(the council insurance includes seroius illness) to avail of a more comphrehensive income protection policy through work but was told the same.

To make it doubly worse, my mortgage for an affordable home purchase is with the council (no choice when i bought). With this scheme i cannot re-mortgage to get a better deal without triggering paypack of clawback (30%) on house.

Which Ombudsman do i register my complaints with? I understand there are more than one?
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

go to ombudsman.ie and they can help you................
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

Yes it's unfortunate about not being able to remortgage. I bought my house 4 years ago and would love to be in a position to do some home improvements. I contacted John O'Connor in the Affordable Homes Partnership explaining the unfairness of not being able to remortgage without paying a clawback. He said he would take my views into account when making a recommendation to the Department of the Environment, Heritage & Local Government.
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council


Hi,

I bought my house through Shared Ownership 4 years ago and we also had to take out the Mort. Protection that they offered to us - we had no choice!

Approx 2 years ago, my partner had a serious work related injury and i was out sick from work for 9 months through a very difficult pregnancy. When we went to the council to use our Mortgage Protection, they wouldn't let us use it as my partner was the higher earner and he was still getting a percentage of his wage from the company that he worked for. (I was on disability).

My point is that this type of Mortgage Protection is useless anyway even if you are in a desperate situation (as we were), yet they insist that you take it out with them.

Thank god we bought them out with a bank mortgage in February. We borrowed more than we owed them, but the repayments are still less!! So much for helping you out!!


Rachel
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

Thank you all for interesting replies. Yes, the fact that one cannot remortgage
without triggering clawback also disgraceful. In relation to the Mort.Pro.Ins.
it is hard to avoid the suspician that we are the victims of a scam, with the
Dept.of Environment conniving, or at least turning a blind eye-- the insurance
is being is being provided by a firm of brokers who are clearly making huge
commissions, given the thousands who are now in shared ownership/
affordable housing. We must all continuosly raise this in every way we can,
with councillors,TDs ect. Acting on what I have read here I intend also to write to the Ombudsman.
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

Thanks for replies. The insurance is provided by a firm of brokers--I think there may be a major scam going on with the connivence of the Dept of the
Envir. We must continue to draw attention to it especially thru councillors
and TDs. I also intend to write to the Ombudsman.
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

Could be worse. You could be paying the .598% on the full market value of the house .
I agree that competition should be allowed everywhere and its totally unfair to bias for one insurance company against another. Maybe theres competition issues involved here ? For example a bank cant force you to take their insurance along with their mortgage (I think) , why should the council be able to force you to take theirs ?
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

i

Took this to the ombudsman, they consider it a valid case and are approaching the council with it. Please do the same. All you have to do is ring or email them, ombudsman.ie
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

Hi, sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I got my TD to put in more questions about this in the hopes that now that there is a Green minister there might be a change in policy ... HA! John Gormley's response was that he was "satisfied" with the present policy.

Also asked him about triggering the clawback when remortgaging, he said they're looking at that, but no commitments.
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

I spoke to a local councillor on the matter (when he was canvassing for a Dail seat which he gained) and he denied the mortgage protection policy had to be taken with the council. He said if I found one cheaper I could of course go with them. I did take it with a pinch of salt - and no, I didn't vote for him!
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

I am still waiting on my Ombudsman reply,will let you know of the outco
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

mlouisa said:
I am still waiting on my Ombudsman reply,will let you know of the outco
Click to expand...

I filed a complaint with the Ombudsman too and they said I needed to write to the Council first. When I get their reply, or if six weeks pass without a reply, then I'm to go back to the Ombudsman. They confirmed that they've had a lot of complaints about this but they said they haven't yet received one they can proceed with.
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

If you mean the FSO then in my experience this could take some time. I have a complaint in with them about Equitable Life for the past few months. They have sent me letters reminding me that they are dealing with it but it's very slow. I guess that EL could be tardy in responding to the investigation so I'm not necessarily criticising the FSO.
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

ClubMan said:
I guess that EL could be tardy in responding to the investigation so I'm not necessarily criticising the FSO.
Click to expand...

According to their website, there is a 30 day limit for financial institutions to respond to requests for information from the FSO's office. I understand this limit is pretty strictly applied.

[broken link removed]
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

Just to clarify, there are 2 issues here for ombudsman:-
1) mortgage protection that is BAD value and OBLIGATORY
2) a mortgage that is RESTRICTIVE in that it forces homeowner to pay clawback in order to avail of better rate mortgage(which defeats the original purpose of affordable housing scheme)

IMHO in making a claim with Ombudsman, it is issue 2) above that should be raised because if/when it resolved, it should enable the homeowner to finally switch BOTH his mortgage and mortgage insurance.


juannjo
 
Re: Mort.Pro. cover with Co.Council

i totally agree with you juannjo that's a very good point. What is the best way of bringing it to the attention of the ombudsman sending an email or by post i guess it doesn't make much difference but the important is the more people that brings this very valid point up the more of a chance we would have of changing our mortgage
 
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