insolvency service ireland lorcan o'connor

Insolvency Service Ireland putting regulation first?

The Insolvency Service of Ireland are already starting in on audits of regulated providers to ensure they have the proper procedures in place to deal with people correctly and that they are in adherence to the code.

From our perspective we see it as a very proactive move and a positive one for the regulated debt advisor sector. People complain all the time about ‘light touch regulation’ and it exists in part because the regulators in question are not out there looking into the affairs of the market participants, or the market participants are finding ways to duck the rules the normal firms have to abide by.

Regulatory arbitrage is thankfully not present in the PIP space the way it is in the debt mediation industry. You can’t call yourself a ‘Personal Insolvency Practitioner’ unless you actually are one whereas it is still the case that unregulated entities can call themselves debt mediators and charge for the service.

How long should they wait before the start a process like this given so few PIA’s have been done? No time at …

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doing a deal with the bank

Getting through the heavy lifting of debt mediation, one result at a time

We had another successful outcome with a lender and thought that it might be worth describing in terms of how it came about and how it worked out.

This time it was Bank of Ireland who many say (in the past ourselves included) are notoriously difficult to deal with, while they are not easy (as none of them are) we have noticed a definite thaw in recent months in how they deal with negotiators which is a positive development.

The client in question has a job in the public sector (many in mortgage arrears do), but has faced various reductions in income and tax increases which resulted in payments being missed.

They engaged with the bank to no avail, spoke to another firm who they heard offer debt mediation for free but then got a quote and that kind of annoyed them so they called us. We suggested that if they wanted free service they go back to the provider who they spoke to first, that provider sent out a standard financial statement reminding them it would cost upwards …

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Primetime: Tanya Sillem looks at the rental market

Tanya Sillem of PrimeTime looked at the rental market and how many people are facing difficult increases in rental prices. Lorcan Sirr of DIT commented as did Threshold.

A key focus was the story of one Dublin mother of three who lost her home when faced with a large increase in rental cost, in our mind this highlights bad housing policy and an absence of supply of suitable accommodation.

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IBRC mortgage loan book sales

We don’t have recourse to the FSO, wholesale repossessions & other IBRC myths

The hype-machine is in full throttle on the sale of the former INBS loans. The fear being that some large evil hedge-fund is out there waiting to repossess homes in the thousands.

There may be such a fund headed by some unknown Dr. Evil, but chances are a hedge-fund is the best outcome for the IBRC mortgage holders.

While some of the points about who does and doesn’t fall under various regulations has been made here already, it is worth pointing out that several other factors must apply.

Firstly is that IBRC loans have no recourse to the FSO already, and loans in the IBRC cannot be changed outside of the original loan terms so people simply can’t get a solution while they are IBRC owned.

This is a problem common in other lenders such as Bank of Scotland who don’t exist here any more, only original loan terms can apply so apart from interest only there is no creativity for a mortgage resolution allowed.

Due to that …

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fianna fail

Protection of Residential Mortgage Account Holders Bill 2014

Normally I expect a better outing from Fianna Fail – in particular where Michael McGrath is concerned. Their new bill for protecting mortgage account holders (aimed mainly at IBRC former Nationwide loan holders) is a banger.

It gets down to details in section 3 onwards. In section 4 it calls any buyer to ‘be bound by such Codes of Practice that govern residential mortgages that are in force at the time of the sale and/or transfer or are subsequently introduced by the Central Bank’. This is misinformation.

You can’t ‘opt in’ to regulation, something we already covered here, you are either regulated or not and mimicking best practice doesn’t mean anything as there is no binding force behind it.

In section 4.2 it states that ‘It shall be a precondition to the sale or transfer of residential mortgage loans by persons or entities who acquire, either by purchase or transfer, residential mortgage loans from financial institutions regulated by the Central Bank to other persons or entities …

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IBRC loan sales

NAMA can’t ‘opt in’ to regulation

Something that has been circulating of late is that if NAMA buy the Irish Nationwide (subsumed into IBRC) loan book that they will follow best practise and no borrower will be ‘less well off’ due to it in terms of regulatory protection.

This is not true because an important aspect of regulatory protection is that of recourse to the office of the Financial Services Ombudsman (FSO). This recourse is covered in section 51 of the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears and also in the Consumer Protection Code of 2012 10.9(d).

Simply stating that you will follow or mimic the existing codes and regulation isn’t the same as actually being covered by them, it doesn’t grant jurisdiction. The FSO cannot structurally cover a complaint made against an unregulated entity. It really isn’t far different than going to them with a complaint about a restaurant you ate at, if they don’t cover the institution they can’t deal with the complaint.

The oft overlooked point is that the granting of regulation …

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AIB split mortgage 2014

Could the new AIB split mortgage be illegal?

In the Sunday Business Post yesterday an article appeared which explained the new AIB split mortgage deal. We sought details of this from AIB but only scant ones were provided which we posted already.

How it works in money terms was not disclosed by AIB but they equally didn’t retract any statements showing up in the press so we can assume that the information published is correct as they haven’t publicly retracted any aspect of how it has been covered. For that reason there was an aspect to this which we see as being of grave concern.

However, if Mary and Tom get a pension lump sum at retirement, they must use this towards paying down tranche B. This only applies to pension lump sums and doesn’t apply to any other lump sums a person may receive e.g. inheritance, bonus payments, gifts, lotto win etc. On this matter it is always advisable to seek professional pension advice.

Read the highlighted parts again, ‘they must use’ the lump sum …

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