Debt Forgiveness.

Why not let people who are in negative equity or who have substantial unsecured debts they are struggling to pay back draw down some of their pension if they have one? This would only be allowed if they proved they had the debt and the funds drawn down were used to pay off that debt. This would be a one time only option and subject to limits (% or €).No use in a 40 year old not being able to put food on the table or stressing about the mortgage/unsecured debt repayments if they have a lrge sum of money saved (in my case in excess of 150k) sitting in a pension pot. The gov can access my money when they are stuck but I cant doesn't seem right to me!
 
Why do so many people still feel that anyone should be concerned with paying back debts to banks in full?
The banks ripped us the customers off completely and they still act as if they are above us.If I rip off a customer no one will say its my customers fault for buying the product ,they will blame me ,the seller for selling a faulty product.The banks sold us products,we bought what was offered to us (Mortgages on over valued property)If they didn't make it available we would not have bought it.As a 24yr old carpenter I was able to get a 350K mortgage for a house in the This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language end of no where (My Father knew it was madness but I wouldn't listen) , why did the bank not know it was madness?

We as taxpayers are know picking up the tab so why do people still insist on saying paying the banks back is the right thing to do.The banks are now being paid back through my over inflated taxes instead of through my monthly direct debit, but they are still being paid back.And for this privilege of covering their mistakes I know have a big black mark on my ecb.I do not see why I should pay higher taxes to cover the banks mistakes and still have to try and deal with my own debt.
 
I think some of you need to have a good hard look at why you are in debt and what you are doing to sort it out. A good start would be looking at the excellent thread started by a new poster called 'the optimist'.
 

I'm going to ask a very personal question which perhaps I ought not to but it came into my head so I'll ask it anyway. Why did you have a third child in a house that you felt was only suitable for 4 people and you knew you couldn't afford to move?
 
If as I suggested yesterday, a mortgage could be broken into 2 seperate parts ie capital and interest and the capital portion only be repaid for a period of time there would come a time relatively soon where the capital portion would be lower than the value of the property and the property would no longer be in negative equity in a capital sense.

Once this point is realised then the home owner could be give 2 options,
1. go back onto repayment of interest and capital over a period extended to ensure that repayment is no more than current repayment plus a say 10 percent.
or
2. sell home and take a personal loan at market average rate for a 5 year fixed motgage plus 0.5 percent. Loan to be secured against future pension entitlements or social income. Many banks are govt. owned so can't department of social protection ensure that repayment guarantees be put in place?

In my uneducated opinion this would ensure that people have opportunities to move while interest repayments and monies due are repaid whilst not creating a financial benefit to not make a genuine effort to repay.

Yes properties are in negative equity but if repayments are made, some time in the future loans will have a value lower than the property value and so moving will not be such a big difficulty. It's a matter of reducing the amount owed as compared to the property value as quickly as possible
 
I'm going to ask a very personal question which perhaps I ought not to but it came into my head so I'll ask it anyway. Why did you have a third child in a house that you felt was only suitable for 4 people and you knew you couldn't afford to move?

You might have heard that there is no abortion in Ireland, and no contraception is 100% effective, despite best efforts. These things happen.
 

The banks are in the main pretty much owned by the taxpayer. All those debts are owed back to the taxpayer wether its via a mortgage with AIB or a ghost estate in NAMA. Its the bank/NAMA/Governments duty to make sure that these debts are paid back as much as possible.
"we bought what was offered to us " Get Real. You bought what you asked to buy.
People need to grow up and accept their responsibilities and stop expecting the rest of us to bail them out. The rest of us who didnt partake in the Housing bubble are already having to pay dearly for the actions of developers inept governement and yes those who bought property and fueled the fire.
 


Are you for real? I had to create an account just to reply to your post...

How did the banks rip you off? you ripped yourself off by borrowing money you could not afford to pay back. Man up and take some
responsibility for your own actions. Just because the banks were stupid to lend you the money you were more stupid to ask them for it, they didn't rip you off.
As for your customer comparison you are way off, it would be better to say you make a deal with a customer and then expect them to meet their end of the deal.
 
Mistakes, I dealt with many young customers like you in my day and I was sick to the teeth of telling them A. prices don't always keep rising and B. you might lose your job but I was wasting my time, they wouldn't listen. Now I know the bank approved the loans but really a bit of personal responsibility wouldn't go astray. I once had a 21 yr old in front of my looking for her 3rd top up on her new build mortgage, her exact words were 'I want my tarmac and I want it now', I though she would stamp her little foot any minute.
 
mistakes does have a round about point, it did take two or more to tango. Should it all be down to him, or now us as the bank owners? The people who actually co-made these decisions have ridden-off into the sunset with public money in their back pocket, including the bondholders. Whilst mistakes is left entirely with the problem, and a very long term to think about it.

There are issues of moral hazard and personal responsibility, but there are also issues of good public policy. Is it good for Ireland to have so many (mostly wealth-generating young ) people massively indebted, with no chance of escape?
 
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Im sorry horusd but i cant see any validity in mistakes opinion whatsoever. The government does need to put a few measures in place to try to control the problem but at the end of the day there is already too much of a strain put on taxpayers at the moment to be allowing people get outs of their mortgages.
 

Wait, wait, wait a minute? Could you elaborate?

"A 21 yr old" ???
 

I think this is one area where something could be done.

Good for Government as they get to tax the early withdrawl from fund
and pension holder gets to increase their cash flow by paying off expensive borrowings and maybe even towards paying down negative equity in situations where people need or want to move home.
As you say the government get to skim money from something you'll not be able to touch until retirement.
 
Going to start with the "when I was..." but at that age, my concerns were working, paying the rent and drinking recklessly. Tarmac and mortgages?

Whatever happened to the youth of today? <tongue out of cheek>
 
As a 24yr old carpenter I was able to get a 350K mortgage for a house in the This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language end of no where (My Father knew it was madness but I wouldn't listen) , .

Could you elaborate on this, so that we can understand the thinking of a 24 year old. Why didn't you listen to your father?
 
There has been no morkable solution put forward, has there?

It's too simplistic to say ' debt forgiveness'.

How does iut work?, who gets it? and how do you get approved?

Does it matter how much you owe?, or who to?
Does it matter if your house was ever affordable on your income?
What if you lied on your application form, (ie inflate your income?)
How does the government make sure that you're not lying on your application form now?


I don't think there'll ever be a working solution.

Yes, the banks should never have been bailed out, and in my opinion there should be criminal charges brought, (to many and sundry) and prision sentences handed down. There is no-one left who can take the responsibility as we've bailed out all the private companies, and government ministers etc seem immune from prosecution.


So there's loads of money left owing, and no-one to pay it back. I can't see a solution.