Portugal property arrears - can they get my Irish home?

Lipton. Just a number of points. You have been asked for more detailed information and it is not here. You have given a variety of valuations on your house of 300k at the lowest and 500k at the highest. Is your home on Interest only or P & I, how many years left on mortgage, how old is the mortgage, what is the interest rate, is it a tracker or svr rate mortgage. What is the household income, family, your ages and family ages. Have you any other debts.
Portguese property. Current value, potential rental income if managed properly.

Above may seem to be looking for a lot of information but if all of the above questions are not answered as well as other pertinent information posters cannot get a true picture and therefore will be unable give the proper advice
 
I don't really know what its worth in this climate or what I'd actually get for it in this climate hence the fluctuations. I have no yard stick to judge by similar house in the area. We owe 420,000 between two banks. 300k in Ireland and 140,000 in Portugal. I earn about 35k as taxi driver and my wife 17,000 per part time. We know ourselves we cannot pay both mortgages. We have two kids and our quality of life is suffering badly. I was hoping to get pratical advice as regards should we stop paying portugal mortgage and allow judgement proceedings go ahead and try and defend it by showing we cannot pay anything ? We cannot, will not and haven't the money to pay the mortgage in Portugal so we just wish to get advice from someone on how Portugal bank will proceed and how we should proceed to stop them getting a judgement. Have you experience in this area with a Portugal bank ?
 
We're not interested in breaking down figures. We're not interested in an extended payment schedule in Portugal. We need advice on how to defend ourselves against a judgement?
 
Are the banks in Europe really so interconnected and motivated I wonder, because if they were surely the Irish banks would be contacting all the Spanish, French, Portuguese etc banks to find out whether they have clients with holiday homes and investment properties in the same names as their own defaulters, in order to attach judgements. I haven't heard of this happening yet, and vice versa, the many European banks owed money by Irish investors dont appear to have started forcing Irish sales here. I just wonder whether this is really an option. Yes, it is theoretically but Ive not heard of any cases yet.

Does the Portuguese bank have the jurisdiction/ authority to contact every Irish lender and ask for client lists and mortgage details? Are these not private?
 
munchy said:
Does the Portuguese bank have the jurisdiction/ authority to contact every Irish lender and ask for client lists and mortgage details? Are these not private?
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Well whatever about the Portuguese banks, the Irish lenders would not have the right to hand out details of your banking affairs to just anyone contacting them.

However the Portuguese banks are in serious trouble and they have lent money to a large number of Irish borrowers, so it is not unreasonable to expect they may try to collect on it. Given that they would be going after a large number of borrowers the cost per action would be much lower than if they were taking action against one or two borrowers. Alternatively a large loan book might be attractive for refactoring to an Irish debt collector.

I would think there is more motivation for a Portuguese or Spanish bank to act on trying to recover the debt than say a German or Italian bank. but at the end of the day it is all speculation...

Still if I was the OP I would try to get the issue sorted in some reasonable way.
 
lipton said:
We're not interested in breaking down figures. We're not interested in an extended payment schedule in Portugal. We need advice on how to defend ourselves against a judgement?
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Well first of all we don't give out legal advice here, only opinions, for legal advice you need to consult a solicitor.

Having said that if the Portuguese bank or one of it's agents takes an action against you to get a judgment, then you will have to defend it in the same way as you would if it were an Irish bank.
 
I've wondered could they sell the debt to an Irish debt collector ? Has it happened in the past. Surprised there is not somebody on this website who has been caught up with an overseas property in Portugal !!
 
lipton said:
I've wondered could they sell the debt to an Irish debt collector ? Has it happened in the past. Surprised there is not somebody on this website who has been caught up with an overseas property in Portugal !!
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If you are dealing with an aggressive Portugese bank they could do anything including selling your loan on (if the conditions all it). I would say there are other Irish people in the same position, but they may not be here. All situations are different and you really should put up as much information as you can.


As Jim said, you should not expect to get legal advice here. Have you sought your own legal advice? It may be worth getting this sooner rather than later.
 
The Portuguese bank may do no investigating of your status in Ireland and may launch a headlong attack on your Irish assets. It is only then that they will realise that there is nothing for them to collect and at that stage they will probably back off.

You would be well advised to put them on notice that they would gain nothing from attaching a judgement to your Irish property and that you will seek costs against them if their applications are thrown out by an Irish court.
 
Time said:
You would be well advised to put them on notice that they would gain nothing from attaching a judgement to your Irish property and that you will seek costs against them if their applications are thrown out by an Irish court.
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OP did say his property might be worth 500K. If it is he could sell it releasing 200K to pay down the 140K in Portugal. And selling the Portuguese property should reduce the 140K even more.

Lipton you cannot defend a case against this. No money is not a defence. You owe the money that is clear. We don't know what the Portuguese bank will do. If you have no equity it is pointless them seeking a Judgement mortgage. So you really ought to prove to them there is no equity, which might stop them. Also you might try to prove to them you have no surplus income so they don't come after you with an instalment order. Before they launch legal proceedings it might be a good idea for you to actively engage with them.

How much is the Portuguese property worth?
 
Mortgage debt is limited to sale value of property

A friend is in a similar position. He is of the opinion that the bank cannot look for more than what they will get when they sell your Portuguese property. It's similar in the US I believe. In other words your indebtedness to the bank is limited to what they can get when they sell your property. After they sell your property they can keep all they get up to what you owe them and then that's it.
 
Lipton. Unless I am missing something from the thread, have you tried to sell the property in Portugal? (or discussed the option of selling it with the bank)
 
sunnyalgarve said:
A friend is in a similar position. He is of the opinion that the bank cannot look for more than what they will get when they sell your Portuguese property. It's similar in the US I believe. In other words your indebtedness to the bank is limited to what they can get when they sell your property. After they sell your property they can keep all they get up to what you owe them and then that's it.
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That does not sound logical or reasonable. The OP owes the bank an quantifiable sum which they are pursuing, "what the bank would get for selling your Portuguese property" is not quantifiable until a sale is agreed. On what does your friend base his opinion? Does he have something more concrete to back that position?

OP, from reading through this thread, the answer to your question seems to be yes, they can pursue you in Ireland for the debt through the same means available if you owed the money in Ireland. If they get a judgement order it can be enforced like any other judgement order. The order will exist for 12 years and can be converted into a judgement mortgage against your property. This can be paid from the proceeds of the sale of your home only after your home mortgage is paid off. That judgement mortgage will only be of value to them if you have positive equity in your property. If you do, they can try to force the sale of your home to recover the money. You have the same defensive options open to you as you would if they were Irish.

You can advise them and perhaps demonsrate that there is nothing to be gained for them but that will not prevent them trying.

I think you need to stop seeing it as a "Portuguese" debt. It reads almost as if you hoped the different jurisdiction would be a protection and a distance, a firewall between you and there. That trouble in one jurisdiction was safely confined there.

You need to sit down and lay out your options in terms of your property and debt as a whole and not try to view any one part of it in isolation. You need to try and get a reasonable idea of the value of your Irish property to assess the risk to your home (300k - 500k is a very wide margin of error!). You need to investigate the possibility of selling your Portuguese property, what would be the shortfall, whether there is any option of converting the NE into unsecured debt at a reasonable rate and whether you could afford such a solution.

It won't be a simple or a comfortable exercise but at least it will give you a more secure position to argue any case from.
 
I think sunnyalgarve is under the impression that mortgages in Portugal are non-recourse as they are in a number of US states.

According to this report, mortgages in Portugal are full recourse so the borrower can be pursued for any shortfall.
 
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