What the Central Bank said about cases in arrears that are in the court system

Below is an email excerpt from the Central Bank on the area of court proceedings. We get frustrated with misinformation about stadiums of people doomed to homelessness and sums up around 20,000 court proceedings being bandied about. They are bad numbers and should be ignored, however, it doesn’t stop people from repeating things that are wrong.

There is also the information (not yet public as far as I know) from the Court Service which indicates the live number of cases in the system at the end of the same period was 12,252 again, nowhere near some of the figures that were being trumped about at the time.

(email below)

> From: CentralBank <*****@centralbank.ie> > Date: ** April 2016 at 15:18:19 GMT+1 > To: ********** > Subject: RE: Clarification of Quarterly Arrears Stats > > Hi *****, Somebody else has just come back to me with a more useful answer for you: The figure for PDH mortgages – at end-December 2015-there were around 13,500 accounts for which court proceedings have been issued (and have not yet concluded). > > …

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Some Irish mortgage statistics worth considering

We all know the headline [glossary id=’6898′ slug=’mortgage’ /] arrears figures and that they are a disaster. Take a look at some of the other figures which don’t make it into general reporting (other than when they come out during Oireachtas committees and the like). Something that still isn’t widely known is that huge numbers of arrears cases are not engaged and haven’t filled in the most basic Standard Financial Statement required to get an arrears resolution.

AIB

6,000 mortgages 2.5 to 3 years behind and not engaging 16,000 Standard Financial Statements (SFS) analysed to collate ‘strategic figures’ 50 per cent of arrears cases haven’t yet filled in an SFS, the founding document of resolutions 2,000 re-engagements after legal threats 2,000 arrears cases have money on deposit greater than arrears 1,000 buy-to-let mortgages with nothing paid in last six months or more 4,000 accounts where customer could pay full mortgage from net disposable income allowing for living expenses (insolvency guidelines plus 20 per cent on top) but do not

Ulster Bank

35 per cent of arrears cases either not engaging …

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‘Plan B’ for arrears

There is a strange situation occurring in the Irish property market, arrears are rising rapidly, stock of repossessed homes is on the increase, and yet the number of repossessions is dropping; there is a contradiction in here somewhere.

Per quarter the number of properties being repossessed is dropping, banks are taking back fewer and fewer houses, this would normally be a sign of prosperity, people with jobs and a stable property market would mean that there would be some equity in the property as people pay down debt and are able to afford their payments, but that isn’t the case, quite the opposite, Irish households are heavily indebted and arrears are rapidly rising.

The largest number of properties being taken back is actually that of voluntary surrender (and abandonment), so there is no ‘repossession’ monster lurking in the Irish market because we have decided that we don’t want it to exist, this will come at a cost as we incrementally strip banks of their ability to enforce mortgage contracts.

The stock of property …

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