Evidence from the courts fails to support popular 'facts' behind repossessions

[Sarenco]

One fact from Karl Deeter's article that jumped out at me was that 15% of the cases surveyed involved vacant properties. That's a lot of homes that presumably would otherwise be available for housing purposes. In other words, the on-going delays in the repossession process may actually be exacerbating the current housing crisis.

A home doesn't "disappear" once it's been repossessed by a lender. A vacant home is still available to provide shelter for somebody as long as it's not locked up in a legal quagmire.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

I was in Letterkenny Circuit Court before the summer break. 198 cases and no repossessions.

There was one which I was sure was a slam dunk. Keys handed back. Nothing paid for years. Substitute service properly served.

But the Registrar asked "On what date were the keys handed back?" I wanted to scream at her "What difference does it make? They haven't paid anything for years. The summons server could not contact them to serve the civil bill." The solicitor's agent didn't know, so the case was adjourned - until January, if I recall correctly. So a vacant house will remain vacant for another 6 months at least.

This is not in anyone's interest.

Brendan

 

[44brendan]

This is a clear reflection of the current Court approach to re-possession proceedings in Ireland. I.e. The legal facts and the ongoing breaches of the loan agreement don't matter a fig. Judges appear to using a common discretion type approach in that they will only grant re-possession as a last ditch option. The legal case appears to be subservient to the social case in that judges are operating the legal system as it was never meant to be operated. As I posted before this is not a free pass where nobody has to bear the cost of the consequent losses suffered due to the long legal processes and the continuing delays in obtaining possession of a property where nothing is being paid on the associated loans.
Marry this up with the issue of high SVR's and the absence of any competition in the mortgage market!!!

 

[demoivre]

There are about 13,000 cases before the courts. I would think that most of them are justified. Some definitely are not.

And very few of these will end in actual possession orders being granted according to your research and Central Bank data ? So what happens to the majority of these cases? Struck out or possession order are the only two outcomes. If the data supports the view that very few possession orders are granted ( ie some alternative arrangement is eventually reached between bank and borrower) then surely a speedier legal process, resulting in more repossessions, is in nobodies interest - homeowner, bank or government !

 

[demoivre]

I was in Letterkenny Circuit Court before the summer break. 198 cases and no repossessions.

How many were making their first appearance before the county registrar?

 

[Brendan Burgess]

I don't follow your logic.

The system should operate as follows:
Those in difficulty, but who have sustainable mortgages, and who are paying something, should be sorted out directly without the aggravation of the courts.

Those who simply won't pay or won't recognise that their mortgage is unsustainable should be repossessed quickly.



Brendan

 

[Brendan Burgess]

How many were making their first appearance before the county registrar?

I don't know how many were actual first appearances. I will check my notes to see if I have that noted. Here is the summary I did at the time.

It was the hearing on June 20th

 

[Bronte]

Have a look at today's indo. Two cases where the judge has forced the lender to start again. It's a great little merry-go-round.

To be fair the case I saw with a person dead for years , it was only right the judge threw it out. How incompetent are banks at this, and they have the highest paid lawyers.

 

[elcato]

To be fair the case I saw with a person dead for years , it was only right the judge threw it out. How incompetent are banks at this, and they have the highest paid lawyers.

But they were only requesting that the name(s) be changed to her husband only as he has acknowledged the debt and hasn't paid anything back in a while. If he was playing ball he would have forgone the issue years ago.

 

[Bronte]

But they were only requesting that the name(s) be changed to her husband only as he has acknowledged the debt and hasn't paid anything back in a while. If he was playing ball he would have forgone the issue years ago.

Bank should have fixed it six years ago, this is not rocket science. It's their own incompetence. You can't change a driving without insurance charge to another person if you make a mistake as far as I know fir example.

What if the person was not dead but living somewhere else, but bank never sent documents to the correct person or address, procedures are there for a reason.

 

[elcato]

Bank should have fixed it six years ago, this is not rocket science. It's their own incompetence.

Or the legal, ahem, professionals perhaps ? I would be pretty sure in this case that it was a mistake. For instance, just because the bank was informed it doesn't mean the arrears department would be. Either way it's another case of more money for the legal eagles.

 

[Delboy]

If the data supports the view that very few possession orders are granted ( ie some alternative arrangement is eventually reached between bank and borrower) then surely a speedier legal process, resulting in more repossessions, is in nobodies interest - homeowner, bank or government !

How is it in nobodies interest????

 

[Gerry Canning]

I was in Letterkenny Circuit Court before the summer break. 198 cases and no repossessions.

There was one which I was sure was a slam dunk. Keys handed back. Nothing paid for years. Substitute service properly served.

But the Registrar asked "On what date were the keys handed back?" I wanted to scream at her "What difference does it make? They haven't paid anything for years. The summons server could not contact them to serve the civil bill." The solicitor's agent didn't know, so the case was adjourned - until January, if I recall correctly. So a vacant house will remain vacant for another 6 months at least.

This is not in anyone's interest.

Brendan

I would have knowledge of two of those cases.
Forget law/legal, these two boyos should have been turfed out years ago.

I really do worry that our {learned} judges are on something ! and it ain,t a common sense pill.
They appear to have locked themselves into (find a reason not to do things) .
They also appear to be unaccountable, and listen to patent drivel from their solicitor cousins.
Brendan is credited with {tsunami of adjournments} type comment .
He is so correct.


..

 

[Delboy]

Would be interesting to see an update on the property portfolios/situations of many of the Judges/Barristers etc in this country. There were plenty of property investment syndicates drawn from the professions back in the boom

 

[demoivre]

I don't follow your logic.

The system should operate as follows:
Those in difficulty, but who have sustainable mortgages, and who are paying something, should be sorted out directly without the aggravation of the courts.

Those who simply won't pay or won't recognise that their mortgage is unsustainable should be repossessed quickly.
Brendan

A mortgage that is unsustainable today might be sustainable in six or twelve months months time, particularly when the borrowers are self employed or unemployed. The bank alone decides whether or not a mortgage is sustainable which is unfair. Any mortgage can be made sustainable using a PIA.
We don't have many repossessions in Ireland because clearly they aren't needed ! The banks don't go away quietly because of multiple adjournments so it seems to me that in most cases alternative arrangements between borrower and bank are arrived at, even if it does take four or five years ! Fast track repossessions will ensure that those arrangements can't happen.

 

[demoivre]

How is it in nobodies interest????

Banks don't want to repossess, the home owner doesn't want to be homeless and mass repossessions have social housing implications for the government.

 

[demoivre]

I don't know how many were actual first appearances. I will check my notes to see if I have that noted. Here is the summary I did at the time.

It was the hearing on June 20th

View attachment 966

All cases are adjourned on first appearance so I don't see anything enlightening about this court visit or indeed the 1947 cases covered over a five or six month period by yourself, Deeter and Coffey. Many of the 1947cases may well have been first time appearances so automatic adjournment takes place. The Central Bank figures confirm low repossession rates in Ireland so I'm struggling to fathom why three guys need to go to such lengths to prove the repossession process in Ireland is a lengthy one as virtually no repossession orders will be granted in the first six months after proceedings have been issued, and rightly so imo. !

 

[epicaricacy]

A mortgage that is unsustainable today might be sustainable in six or twelve months months time, particularly when the borrowers are self employed or unemployed. The bank alone decides whether or not a mortgage is sustainable which is unfair. Any mortgage can be made sustainable using a PIA.
We don't have many repossessions in Ireland because clearly they aren't needed ! The banks don't go away quietly because of multiple adjournments so it seems to me that in most cases alternative arrangements between borrower and bank are arrived at, even if it does take four or five years ! Fast track repossessions will ensure that those arrangements can't happen.

Our case proves the point you are making. My wife and I are now working again and we'd be more than capable of making our mortgage repayments.

The bank moved too quickly to seek a solution in our opinion. We were in the last month of the 12 month MARP when they exerted enormous pressure of us to engage in a Voluntary Sale. We found their haste perplexing as we'd proactively communicated with them throughout and had been paying 80% of our interest repayments in addition to paying 20 months of our full mortage (capital plus interest) from our redundancies prior to entering MARP.

In retrospect, the upshot of the bank's undue haste is that they lost not only the shortfall amount but a couple who would have been able to pay capital plus interest into the future (total of +550K remaining over the life time of the mortgage) as opposed to the purchase price of a fraction of the original sale price to a wealthy cash investor. My calculation is that the decision has cost them 180 shortfall amount plus lost interest payments of at least 200K.

In addition, our credit rating has been indefinitely destroyed and we're left in rental limbo.

 

[Sarenco]

Banks don't want to repossess, the home owner doesn't want to be homeless and mass repossessions have social housing implications for the government.

This is one of the most pervasive myths about the effect of repossessions. Unless the lender decides to dynamite a repossessed home, this process will have zero impact on the amount of available housing stock. All that will change is the ownership of that home.

The failure to deal with defaulting home loans in a timely, cost-effective way simply increases the aggregate cost of housing (rents and mortgage payments) which has long-term adverse consequences for the competitiveness of our economy.

 

[Sarenco]

Fast track repossessions will ensure that those arrangements can't happen.

Why so? Surely timely repossessions would simply result in timely loan restructurings (to the extent that such restructurings are viable in the first place).