Brendan Burgess
Founder
- Messages
- 52,175
BANKS ARE TREATING people on variable rate mortgages “very badly” and “shabbily”, Minister Leo Varadkar has said.
Varadkar said the Government is not going to interfere in the commercial decisions of banks, saying “it would be a mistake to do that”.
Despite the report today, he said that there “hasn’t been an official decision or anything like that on the bank levy that I’ve been party to”.
"All the attention is on the mortgage arrears issue but there is only 30,000 of them, there are 300,000 variable mortgage holders. They are the working poor we talk about," one source said. "The only thing that moves banks is the thought of losing cash."
The 30,000, many of whom are selective defaulters, have many more advocates on their behalf than the 300,000.
Is it time for the 300,000 to tell the government to stop defending the defaulters?
If the lenders said that they would reduce rates by 1% in return for an increase in their powers to deal with defaulters, I think it would have majority support.
Are we the only country in the world who go to such efforts to keep defaulters in homes they probably could never have afforded?Or is the common practice?
I doubt very much that it is.
We are absolutely unique.
We have ten times the arrears rate as the UK and one tenth the rate of repossessions.
And when I call publicly for repossessions to be facilitated, I am demonised.
Brendan
There is not one Political Party out there with the moral courage to call it as it is.
Another reality check is that there are many tens of thousands unemployed.
The majority of mortgage holders are decent people who want to pay their way but circumstances alter cases. These circumstances need to be taken on board by lending institutions but unfortunately there is no face to face relationship between lender and borrowers in distress. There are 'call center' types on the end of phones with a line of patter akin to cold callers at the door.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?