You owe a couple of hundred thousand it’s your problem, you owe them a few million it’s their problem.

Spot on the mark. The budget will tip alot of this category of peopleover the arrears cliff!!

Michael you should tell them you can’t pat, fill in their financial statements and insist that you can’t pay the extra amount.

Fitsz, Ill fill it in alright, if only as a “housekeeping excercise”. They couldnt care less!!! The best they may offer is Interest Only. I was listening to a senior counsel from New Beginnings on RTE with Mary Wilson and he said I.O. is a fools game and seemed very much against it. Im lucky that I can finance it, but feel really hard done by. Considering Ive never missed a payment, wouldnt you think they would let a sleeping dog lie!!!

True. The problem being if you write off part of the debt, the banks need more capital which will hve to come from the taxpayer.

Also, how do you justify writing off debt of people who bought houses they really couldn’t afford but the people who bought within their means are left with the same hefty mortgages.

No easy solution to this mess.

And restructuring for a longer period of time also has its problems. Many of these mortgages are already over 30 to 40 years as it is. If people cant afford it now, they certainly will not be able to afford it in their retirement years.

@InTrapWeTrust. The money has already been given to the banks. Was factored in during the stress tests.

With the cost to the average house hold estimated to go up after the next budget by circa €500 per annum and add in other costs such as a property tax etc., I think we can expect to see the number of house holds in difficulty rise quite sharply next year.

Well Trap, I would agree with you except for the fact that the builders, developers and bankers have been bailed out and people sat back and took it. But when our neighbours, colleugues and friends mention getting mortgage writedown people get furious. Guess, we are a jealous breed of people by nature!!!

@Kerry I very much doubt sufficient funds were set aside for wholesale debt forgiveness.

To begin resolving this crisis insolvent banks need to fold. Unfortunately, successive governments are more interested in saving these institutions than saving hard-pressed families.
The more taxpayers money that is poured into these blackholes the more will be needed.
http://mises.org/daily/5800/Why-Is-There-a-Euro-Crisis

@Michael…..what developers have been bailed out? Dont know of any myself. All will eventually made bankrupt.

@InTrapWeTrust. 2 points. We don’t need a whole sale mortgage forgivness. Those who can pay will continue to pay (unfair I know) but we do need to look after those who cannot pay and risk loosing their homes and that was factored into the stress tests. I see no point throwing people out of their homes if they cannot pay their mortgage due to reduced circumstances be it job loss or what ever.

Regarding developers you are incorrect when you say they will all be made bankrupt. The head of NAMA is on record saying that if they have no appriciable assets left there is no point in making them bankrupt. Some of them are already getting a digout from NAMA 2 of them are being paid 200k a year to ‘work’ for NAMA.

Indeed, and isn’t the silence of the trade unions, many of whose head honchos sat at the boardroom tables of banks or on regulatory quangos, absolutely deafening? Presumably, they don’t want to upturn the featherbed of the Croke Park Agreement.

I wonder would a borrower enforced one month payment moratoreum make them listen. If all mortgage holders, those in trouble and those not in trouble held back one months payment e.g April to co-inside with Easter, to let them know a new “rising” was starting, would they then listen???….worth a try?

Salaries? I’d look at their pensions! Aren’t they linked to civil service ones too?

Yeah I was wondering what percentage of that number would be second homes.

100 thousand mortgages at say 300k each is a lot more than 25m…….unless I am missing your point.

You’d think that, but after a pension levy, paycut (or job loss in other peoples cases), income tax increase and six interest rate increases (EBS) an affordable mortgage on a small little house becomes less affordable. They just keep moving the goalposts!