Mortgage Prisoners - time to get loud!!

I think it’s time we come together and make some noise about the unfair treatment we are receiving from the constant increases from Vulture Funds. It is clear that Central Bank and the Government are not in a rush to help us! I truly believe if enough of us come together and make a much noise as possible we will all benefit.
I am starting this thread but please any suggestions of where to start are welcome! I know this is a difficult topic and you can stay anonymous if necessary.

I was previously with PTSB now with Pepper . My mortgage has no arrears and I am paying full capital but my payments have increased 40% since last June. I don’t know how much more I can withstand. We were told when the loans were offloaded to these funds we would not be any worse off. This was a lie if I was still with PTSB I would not be in this situation.

Unionk said:

I think it’s time we come together and make some noise about the unfair treatment we are receiving from the constant increases from Vulture Funds. It is clear that Central Bank and the Government are not in a rush to help us! I truly believe if enough of us come together and make a much noise as possible we will all benefit.
I am starting this thread but please any suggestions of where to start are welcome! I know this is a difficult topic and you can stay anonymous if necessary.

I was previously with PTSB now with Pepper . My mortgage has no arrears and I am paying full capital but my payments have increased 40% since last June. I don’t know how much more I can withstand. We were told when the loans were offloaded to these funds we would not be any worse off. This was a lie if I was still with PTSB I would not be in this situation.

Click to expand...

i presume you are on a variable rate? have PTSB not also increased their variables?

Can you switch?

Hi Unionk, I am in this situation and actually joined this site to get advice on the matter. Charlie Weston from the Independent, Mark Coan from Money Sherpa and Brendan Burgess from this site / The Examiner have all written various articles.

Have you made a formal complaint to your mortgage provider? You need to raise a complaint regarding the increase in rates, that you have requested to fix (or what other contacts you have made with them) and request that they issue you with a "final response" letter. With this, you can make a formal complaint to the FSPO (Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman), which I have done. My case has been assigned with the FSPO and I await hearing from them.

In the meantime my mortgage provider (Start) made me aware of a product I am eligible for, a temporary fixed rate of 3%. This is in place now for 2 years and I would hope some legislative solution will have been proposed by the time it ends. I needed to complete an SFS to avail of this. Like you, my repayments had increased, by over €600 per month, nearly 40% of an increase.

From reading Minister McGrath's letter to the Central Bank, and in consideration of their ongoing review of the Customer Protection Code, I believe they want borrowers to switch away from the vulture funds and the "talk" seems to be around supporting that.

I think it is unfair that people are being urged to go "public" with their personal affairs, but that is just my own opinion. Most people want their financial situation to remain private, hence looking for advice anonymously on a website.

I wish you the best of luck with your situation, and would encourage you to advocate on your own behalf with your lender and the FSPO as well as with the politicians etc.

Unfortunately I am not in a position to switch right now.
@Tomandgerry delighted you have agreed a solution with your provider. I absolutely agree with you, I don’t think anyone wants their financial information made public but I do believe there is strength in numbers. It’s a lot easier to ignore one person.
Thanks for your advice I will follow this up.

Unionk said:

We were told when the loans were offloaded to these funds we would not be any worse off.

Click to expand...

Can you clarify where this assurance was given and by whom?
I suspect that it will help to argue your case(s) on the basis of clear and hard evidence.
"Getting loud" is pointless unless backed up by sound evidence and arguments.

ClubMan said:

Can you clarify where this assurance was given and by whom?
I suspect that it will help to argue your case(s) on the basis of clear and hard evidence.
"Getting loud" is pointless unless backed up by sound evidence and arguments.

Click to expand...

Unionk said:

I think it’s time we come together and make some noise about the unfair treatment we are receiving from the constant increases from Vulture Funds. It is clear that Central Bank and the Government are not in a rush to help us! I truly believe if enough of us come together and make a much noise as possible we will all benefit.
I am starting this thread but please any suggestions of where to start are welcome! I know this is a difficult topic and you can stay anonymous if necessary.

I was previously with PTSB now with Pepper . My mortgage has no arrears and I am paying full capital but my payments have increased 40% since last June. I don’t know how much more I can withstand. We were told when the loans were offloaded to these funds we would not be any worse off. This was a lie if I was still with PTSB I would not be in this situation.

Click to expand...

I dont want to be upsetting anyone. There is nothing worse than been under genuine financial pressure be it from any angle. I remember paying an interest rate of 13.95% many years back. It was awful but I had to suck it up and take on extra work to make the payments.
Taking on a mortgage is a serious undertaking. Rates have been much much higher a lot of the years.
If anybody expects the government/tax payer to step in each and every time rates rise they are sadly in for a shock. It simply will not happen.

“We do care, there are expectations out there for how these organisations should behave and what rights consumers have. At the end of the day, the setting of interest rates is something for the banks and on banks but there are protections in existence that we expect them to follow.”

KOW said:

I dont want to be upsetting anyone. There is nothing worse than been under genuine financial pressure be it from any angle. I remember paying an interest rate of 13.95% many years back. It was awful but I had to suck it up and take on extra work to make the payments.
Taking on a mortgage is a serious undertaking. Rates have been much much higher a lot of the years.
If anybody expects the government/tax payer to step in each and every time rates rise they are sadly in for a shock. It simply will not happen.

Click to expand...

I think the point being missed here is that the customers of vulture funds have been unable to fix their rates (at all), despite fixed rates being offered by their previous lenders.

KOW said:

I dont want to be upsetting anyone. There is nothing worse than been under genuine financial pressure be it from any angle. I remember paying an interest rate of 13.95% many years back. It was awful but I had to suck it up and take on extra work to make the payments.
Taking on a mortgage is a serious undertaking. Rates have been much much higher a lot of the years.
If anybody expects the government/tax payer to step in each and every time rates rise they are sadly in for a shock. It simply will not happen.

Click to expand...

The problem is we are unable to fix but would have been if we were with high street lenders. I don’t expect the government to pay my mortgage but I do expect them to step in and ensure we are treated fairly.

Unionk said:

The problem is we are unable to fix but would have been if we were with high street lenders. I don’t expect the government to pay my mortgage but I do expect them to step in and ensure we are treated fairly.

Click to expand...

Agree with you totally. Just another dinosaur comment. Not so long ago restrictions on switching term of the mortgage etc were way way more restrictive. Agreed everyone should be treated fairly. That said the banks and lenders job is to put it very bluntly make max. profit for their shareholders. You me and everybody are only here to for that purpose.

The so-called "vulture banks" are in a somewhat different situation to the mainstream banks, I would have thought.
The mainstreams are crammed full of customer deposits at the moment, on which they are paying almost no interest. They are using these to cover their lending/mortgages. The "vultures" do not have a deposit base and are dependent on market funding - and hence are more closely linked to the rising ECB rate.

Early Riser said:

The so-called "vulture banks" are in a somewhat different situation to the mainstream banks, I would have thought.
The mainstreams are crammed full of customer deposits at the moment, on which they are paying almost no interest. They are using these to cover their lending/mortgages. The "vultures" do not have a deposit base and are dependent on market funding - and hence are more closely linked to the rising ECB rate.

Click to expand...

Interesting but based on their initial outlay for the loans, I understand the funding costs are significantly less than the market rate. I stand to be corrected on that but the Central Bank have asked them to set out their funding costs across the different strata of their loan books. This may be positive news for people affected by 40% repayment increases.

Early Riser said:

They are using these to cover their lending/mortgages. The "vultures" do not have a deposit base and are dependent on market funding - and hence are more closely linked to the rising ECB rate.

Click to expand...

This is true but somewhat beside the point.

Borrowers sticking to terms of the restructure are being squeezed much more than at banks and have no option to switch.

This is really a consumer protection issue . It’s been discussed at length on other threads and what’s needed is legislation to prevent funds charging more than some margin above a chosen benchmark.

Given the amount of legislation we’ve had to protect renters…

NoRegretsCoyote said:

It’s been discussed at length on other threads and what’s needed is legislation to prevent funds charging more than some margin above a chosen benchmark.

Click to expand...

Such as a margin above the ECB rate? The ECB cumulative rise to date has been (I think) 3.5%. I don't know what the cumulative rise has been with the "vulture" banks? Has their margin widened?

"Given the amount of legislation we’ve had to protect renters…"

Such as the "rent freeze" ? Are we for or against that? Has it helped?

Early Riser said:

Such as a margin above the ECB rate? The ECB cumulative rise to date has been (I think) 3.5%. I don't know what the cumulative rise has been with the "vulture" banks? Has their margin widened?

"Given the amount of legislation we’ve had to protect renters…"

Such as the "rent freeze" ? Are we for or against that? Has it helped?

Click to expand...

Aside from the fact that the vulture funds may not allow a person to fix, I'm struggling to see what the issue is here. Everyone's variable or tracker mortgage has gone up because the ECB rates have gone up by the 3.5%. On a 200k mortgage, that works out at around 30% increase in payments.
Had the mortgage remained with a High Street Bank, that would have happened

So to really understand the issue here, we need to understand what the OP was originally paying, what he would have been paying had the mortgage stayed with the bank and what he is paying now. Cold hard facts

Any statement made by a politician is just irrelevant unless it is covered in legislation or included in the mortgage transfer contract or documents,

Hi Daddyman

The issue is they are Vulture funds are passing on every rate hike from ECB, tracker and variable. Main stream banks are not. (unless on a tracker) Those on variable rates are seeing there interest rates rise nearly to 8%. Any sensible person with their right mind would fix for protection from these hikes... we can not!!
My mortgage has gone up 400 euro a MONTH
If I had stayed with PTSB this would not be the case.
Put yourself in a vulture fund customer shoes and I'm sure you would see the issue then!

Early Riser said:

Such as a margin above the ECB rate? The ECB cumulative rise to date has been (I think) 3.5%. I don't know what the cumulative rise has been with the "vulture" banks? Has their margin widened?

Click to expand...

I think it’s more an issue that there is no ceiling on what a fund can charge and most customers are trapped. Discussed at length on this thread:

Early Riser said:

"Given the amount of legislation we’ve had to protect renters…"

Such as the "rent freeze" ? Are we for or against that? Has it helped?

Click to expand...

I wasn’t very clear. My point is that huge amounts of time and effort have been spent in recent years on legislative measures to protect renters. With a fraction of the political will a legislative solution could be found for people trapped with these lenders.

thedaddyman said:

Everyone's variable or tracker mortgage has gone up because the ECB rates have gone up by the 3.5%. On a 200k mortgage, that works out at around 30% increase in payments.
Had the mortgage remained with a High Street Bank, that would have happened

Click to expand...

Hi Dad

Unfortunately, that is a common misunderstanding of the situation - share by the Central Bank and the Government. "The vultures have just put up rates in line with the increases in ECB rates - so what is the problem?"

The Irish banks competed for business on fixed rates. They kept their default variable rates artificially high. So while you could fix with ptsb or BoI at 3%, when the fixed rate ended you defaulted to variable rates of up to 4.5%. You could usually fix again at 3%, but a lot of people didn't.

So the vulture funds are adding the ECB rate increases to an artificially high variable rate.

Even if you were a switched-on customer and had fixed at 3%, now that your fixed rate is ending and your mortgage has been sold to a vulture fund, your mortgage rate is now up to 7.5%.

Brendan

Brendan Burgess said:

Hi Dad

Unfortunately, that is a common misunderstanding of the situation - share by the Central Bank and the Government. "The vultures have just put up rates in line with the increases in ECB rates - so what is the problem?"

The Irish banks competed for business on fixed rates. They kept their default variable rates artificially high. So while you could fix with ptsb or BoI at 3%, when the fixed rate ended you defaulted to variable rates of up to 4.5%. You could usually fix again at 3%, but a lot of people didn't.

So the vulture funds are adding the ECB rate increases to an artificially high variable rate.

Even if you were a switched-on customer and had fixed at 3%, now that your fixed rate is ending and your mortgage has been sold to a vulture fund, your mortgage rate is now up to 7.5%.

Brendan

Click to expand...

I made multiple requests to my mortgage provider to fix the variable rate, I made those requests in writing so there would be a record. If I had been able to fix at the time of my initial request the average rate on the market was circa 2.8%.