What is reasonable compensation for those affected by the tracker issue

I think that in a court of law, it would be agreed that someone with no history of medical issues prior to the stress of a tracker debacle who then had a stroke could reasonably contend that the two are linked.

Then we’re into hundreds of thousands and rightly so.

For the generic cases, look to Revenue and their penalties regime for guidance;

Money back
100% penalty
8% per annum interest
 
In the above situation @Brendan Burgess describes re trading up - and have documentation of looking to move before I applied to FSO to get tracker back and at the time I would have been able to keep my apartment to rent and buy a house locally with a very reasonable mortgage. However, I was not happy with the tracker being gone and Ulster had started letting people move with their trackers fully intact.

I was cognoscent of the clause in the contract which states you must be resident in the property to avail of the tracker and waited to move until the FSO process was finished. I was advised by the FSO it would take 5 months, it took 26. By the time it concluded the differential in house prices had risen too much and it would have been necessary to sell the apartment but apartment prices had not recovered in the same way and the differential was too much. I am also 5 years older now than I would have been and this also impacts on borrowing capacity as well as potential repayments

As the subsequent emails emerged stating the section 2 of my contract provision - I would definitely be looking for compensation for an inability to trade up, particularly as the bank pursed the case so vigorously through the FSO knowing that I should have had it back initially.

Moreover, over the period since have made no reasonable effort to correct the situation. As recently as March I was trying to move again and the bank would not budge on sorting it out. In this scenario, though the apartment price has risen, the differential is too great as houses are selling for generally 20% more than their asking price - apartments not so much and I couldn't get into a bidding war with a couple. Also estate agents would not look at you without being sale agreed yourself so there was a large risk of ending up with nothing

A friend was telling me recently there is a statute called loss of chance where you can look for such damages so with that particular evidence I think I would be pushing for that sort of compensation. As things currently stand, I would have been better off financially not to have gone to the FSO and moved without the tracker.

I would also argue that I have put in uncountable hours in terms of sorting it out - that could have been used to put towards a business I do in addition to my day job, I could have used the two nights working towards my social life, family and all other activities - I completely understand the point Brendan is making regarding you can't say everything is the fault of the tracker but the unresolved situation has a huge knock on affect on the choices which you are able to make or have to make as well as the general weight of the stress of it in your daily life -and that part is very difficult to quantify as things might have happened which you can't say are fully the result of this but they most certainly were a contributory factor. I may have ended up on 6 hours a week in work with unpaid holidays numerous years as did happen a result of the public service moratorium anyway but that would have been easier to get through with the tracker on the mortgage.

I think at a minimum - they should look at what you would pay them were you in arrears to them for ten years and give a similar sum of compensation
 
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I think at a minimum - they should look at what you would pay them were you in arrears to them for ten years and give a similar sum of compensation[/QUOTE]

What would a bank charge?

This would be a good starting point as it comes from the banks own scale.

This however would not account for the personal trauma.
 
I definitely agree that many young people and families were severely impacted by losing their tracker mortgages and having increased repayments. Banks should compensate accordingly. I have no doubt that many will have evidence like notabene and banks will have to address that.
 
Let's be clear that the refund already includes interest..

Can I check I'm understanding what you're saying, Brendan? That the banks have committed to paying back, and are already in the process of paying back:
1. the sum overpaid
2. Interest on the sum
3. Compensation.

I believe that there's a big lack of clarity on the Interest which is due to us, and compensation which is discretionary.
 
I agree.

WHAT rate of interest is being included? "Prevailing" deposit interest rate or unarranged overdraft interest rate? It should be the latter!!

And although interest is included in the sum, compensation could be calculated as an additional % charge, for every year
 
I think that in a court of law, it would be agreed that someone with no history of medical issues prior to the stress of a tracker debacle who then had a stroke could reasonably contend that the two are linked.

Then we’re into hundreds of thousands and rightly so.

For the generic cases, look to Revenue and their penalties regime for guidance;

Money back
100% penalty
8% per annum interest

I really like this idea. Revenue apply these penalties to discourage people attempting to evade their taxes and to penalise them for the amount of time Revenue was without the money it was owed. So this penalises the bank and ensures the customer gets their own money back and gets amply compensated for the losses in their lives the lack of money caused in the years since the tracker was taken from them.

I would also suggest for every phone call made by the customer to the bank €50, for every letter written to the bank €100, for every holding letter the bank wrote to the customer €100, for every meeting with the bank €500 for an application to FSO another larger penalty to the bank. So the longer the bank dragged the compensation on and on, for the more lack of response to letters or calls the greater the penalty.

There are some posters here, who never even realised they had suffered a damage until the bank contacted them, there are others who have been writing and calling to the bank for years and years. This option would allow the customers who have been affected the greatest by the lack of engagement of the banks the most compensation.

For those who lost their houses: That is another entirely different level of compensation. If it was me, I would probably like my actual house back in my ownership, and all my mortgage payments sorted out and up to date by the bank, as a start...
 
@joe351980 time value of money means the account for the value of the money that you would have had. If you have a fiver in 2006 and a fiver in 2017 - their actual value, as in their purchasing power is not the same. So when there is time value of money calculated this accounts of the loss of value in the money today compared with what you would have had in previous years
 
In some American jurisdictions, the lender on a usurious loan is subject to the following civil penalties:
(1) forfeiture to the borrower of all interest on the loan, e.g. (EUR20K*10years=EUR200K), not just the usurious part; and
(2) payment to the borrower of triple the amount of interest collected
before the mortgagers bring suit. (EUR200K*3=EUR600K)
 
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