To veto or not to veto, that is the question…

There is a clear message of ‘veto’ coming from BOI, that has been covered in the press following his comments to the Oireachtas Finance Committee.

‘He said his bank would seek to veto any proposal from Personal Insolvency Practitioners (PIP) featuring mortgage write-down for its customers. Bank of Ireland’s policy is only to write off mortgage debt in cases of bankruptcy or personal insolvency, where the bank is forced to make the move’ 

Then they email all of the PIP’s the email below which states that they do want to engage, but to do so on a basis outside of formal arrangements and prior to things going that route, which makes sense if their message is that they will veto those anyway.

It is unrealistic to make this request then make a habit of saying ‘no’ twice, if they do all of the debt advisors will realise it’s a ruse and go straight to bankruptcy which will cost the lender, or they will always opt for insolvency where a more lenient creditor holds sway.

For this reason we can’t help but think that on some level the ‘we will veto everything’ message was really a way of appearing to walk a hard line that lacks credibility in practical terms, nobody can or will do that.

Bank of Ireland do offer good workable deals to clients in genuine distress, that they don’t give these deals away like smarties is known, but it equally isn’t a case that they ‘don’t do deals’.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: insolvency <*******@boi.com>
Date: 2 May 2014
Subject: BOI Pre Engagement
To: *********

Good Morning,

As you will be aware, BOI Group has a centralised Personal Insolvency Unit in place to manage all Personal Insolvency cases and a number of you have already engaged with our team.

Based on our experiences to date, pre-engagement on Personal Insolvency cases is delivering better outcomes for all parties.

With this in mind, should you wish to discuss any potential cases in advance of a Protective Certificate being requested please contact our team at *******@boi.com.

Kind Regards

Personal Insolvency Unit
Dublin 2

Direct: **********

BOI Classification: Internal – Amber
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