A perspective on mortgage arrears and negative equity

People are breaking the problem down to people in arrears and people not in arrears, Black & White!
I would suggest there are also many shades of Grey. For example, many people, singles and couples are being helped out by parents, a group that is itself heading into trouble with poor pension schemes, bad investments for rainy day pensions, delay in getting OAP due to Gov. putting them off for a year, increased cost of living..........

So we have ppl in arrears!

PPL not in arrears who are:
1. Coping due to sufficient income
2. Coping due to stringent cuts in living expenses and quality of life poor
3. Coping due to paying mortgage at the expense of critical items such as Health Insurance, clothing for kids,.............
4. Coping due to help from parents
5. Coping due to help from parents who themselves have made stringent cuts in their own lives to help - reduced their retired life to help
6. Coping due to parents who have cut essentials such a Health Insurance to help
7. Coping due to parents who themselves are running out of the ability to do so

I probably could come up with more examples to illustrate that its no B&W or a simple accounting balance sheet.

The fact is that the whole community is suffering and is getting worse, the effects on children going to school (old clothes), young couples strains in relationships, young singles with depression (no way out), older people trying to help, older people unable to help...........
 
I agree with your comments monagt, but Brendan's piece in the Indo was precisely the bucket of cold water that Morgan Kelly and all the other sensationalist economists needed dumped over their heads and is a great comfort to me and I suspect many, many others!
 
Hi monagt

You suggest that nearly everyone is in trouble. If that is so, then it makes the argument against debt forgiveness even stronger. Why should someone in one of your "not in arrears, but under severe pressure" have to pay to clear the negative equity or arrears of someone else?

Brendan
 
I currently have 2 a&e bills here waiting to be paid both €100 each, a car in the drive to be taxed, a child to be sent to school next week and I'm not waiting on any back to school to school allowance because you can be dam sure we wouldn't qualify for it, I don't have a mortgage because we rent and if I don't pay the rent the landlord would rightly move to evict us, I'd love to have a years moratorium and a possible bailout out ahead of me or failing that a reason not to pay them outstanding a&e bills and anything else I can get away with.
 
You suggest that nearly everyone is in trouble. If that is so, then it makes the argument against debt forgiveness even stronger.

No you misunderstand!

My contention is that you do not know who is in trouble and who is not.

I suggest that a lot of people between 2005-2009 may be in trouble in varying degrees (the normal distribution applies) and you or me do not know who.

Because I put up my hand and go into arrears may be my strategy while someone else more genuine may be struggling on by various means (poverty in the home, parents help, etc)

You are looking at a cold clinical balance sheet and not considering the good of the community.

I am nor for or against "debt forgiveness" - not a fundamentalist either way - I only know that something has to happen to repair our community.
 
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thewatcher said:
I currently have 2 a&e bills here waiting to be paid both €100 each, a car in the drive to be taxed, a child to be sent to school next week and I'm not waiting on any back to school to school allowance because you can be dam sure we wouldn't qualify for it, I don't have a mortgage because we rent and if I don't pay the rent the landlord would rightly move to evict us, I'd love to have a years moratorium and a possible bailout out ahead of me or failing that a reason not to pay them outstanding a&e bills and anything else I can get away with.
Click to expand...

Once upon a time, we helped our young couples get on the property ladder and establish a home, a pity we stopped.

Stable families in stable communities should be the goal of our social policies.
 
FAMILIES in modern Ireland are going without food to meet the demand of mortgage debt.
Click to expand...



The decision of homeowners to choose hunger over a fear of eviction helps expose as irrelevant the issue of "moral hazard", the defence of policymakers who resist calls for debt forgiveness.

No further comment!
 
That story simply illustrates the stupidity of the mortgage holder - nothing more and nothing less. He had a very small mortgage and was making the full repayments. He had not even spoken to his lender who would have quickly reduced his payments or given him a moratorium. Joan Burton mentioned today that he was probably entitled to MIS as well.

Brendan
 
Is the story real?
Is it a plant?

Sorry to be sceptic, but ...

I have no doubt that there are many people in difficulty but it is difficult to imagine an intelligent adult behaving in this way
 
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
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Can anyone give me or tell me where to find a list of who is on the Ministers workgroup on Debt (of which BB is a member)?
 
There was an Expert Group on Mortgage Arrears and Personal Debt last year which produced an interim report and a final report. The members are listed in the Final Report.

There is now an interdepartmental group. The chair is Declan Keane a partner in KPMG who has been on secondment to the Dept of Finance for some time. I am not a member as I am not a civil servant.
 
jpd said:
Is the story real?
Is it a plant?

Sorry to be sceptic, but ...

I have no doubt that there are many people in difficulty but it is difficult to imagine an intelligent adult behaving in this way
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+1

I was wondering the same myself... not that it would be a bad thing if the aim is to promote the Vincent de Paul or other organisations' willingness to help in this situation. It seems unreal that someone could say their pride was keeping them from looking for help from the V de P or elsewhere to keep their family fed
 
jpd said:
Is the story real?
Is it a plant?

Sorry to be sceptic, but ...

I have no doubt that there are many people in difficulty but it is difficult to imagine an intelligent adult behaving in this way
Click to expand...

I believe it to be a plant.
There are certain signs and behaviour of people who are in distress

Going down the road of malnutrition of his children was just a step too far for me in the credibility states.
Not paying their mortgage for fear of causing their children dietary harm would have been more believable.

But in fact people who are really that desperate don't write anonymously.
They want everyone to feel their pain in a call for help by any other name.

A call to their local Money Advice and Budgeting Service would have yielded strategies with which to approach their bank.
A call to their bank would have resulted in some sort of instant moratorium to all matters to be fully assessed.
 
millieforbes said:
+1

I was wondering the same myself... not that it would be a bad thing if the aim is to promote the Vincent de Paul or other organisations' willingness to help in this situation. It seems unreal that someone could say their pride was keeping them from looking for help from the V de P or elsewhere to keep their family fed
Click to expand...

Pride can be a killer for some people, especially people who have achieved a certain standing in their communities.

This story just didn't ring true in my ears.

That's not to undermine monagt's earlier comment that there are many shades of gray in this situation.
 
The letter was ridiculous and I can't believe a newspaper editor published it. Anyone who puts paying their mortgage above feeding their kids are just daft. The writer would rather his kids went hungry than pick up the phone and talk to the bank. Says more about the letter writer than it does about the bank.
 
The IT had some details the day after the original letter was published. The mortgage was originally 130K, taken out in 2003. He worked in the public sector for 10 years until 2 years ago. The IT also published an accompanying piece by Conor Pope which basically said that your priorities would need to be askew if you prioritised full mortgage repayment over feeding your family. I can understand that he wouldn't want to lose his house with so much paid off and perhaps unlikely to be in negative equity - but interest only on 80K would be less than 350 per month so I don't know why he wouldn't explore options like that - or, as mentioned, the mortgage interest supplement route.

It did seem like a bizarre letter - the IT says they don't publish anonymous letters but the Indo story seems to be based on the IT story which is surprising as it shouldn't haven't been difficult to track him down and talk directly.
 
monagt said:
The decision of homeowners to choose hunger over a fear of eviction helps expose as irrelevant the issue of "moral hazard", the defence of policymakers who resist calls for debt forgiveness.
No further comment!
Click to expand...

"Moral hazard" is not just a couple of words, no more than "honour" or "decency" are just words.
"Moral hazard" concerns :
whether our society values resposibility or recklessness
whether those who pay their way should be forced to pay for others who don't
whether those who don't work should be rewarded more than those that do
whether those who choose to live within their means are valued more than those who don't

The question of moral hazard goes to the root of who we reward in society - thus creating the society of the future. Irish society, top to bottom, has been actively rewarding the wrong people, and punishing the wrong people.

Do we want a society which values work and responsibility? Or one that values recklessness and lack of self restraint? The public have no idea of how using taxpayers money to write of mortgage debt is going to work out. They haven't played the game of chess past moving the first pawn. But for any sane smart person standing here looking at Ireland - they are going to find it hard to see the rewards of work and responsibility. They will either leave and go where those idea's are rewarded, or else stay and join the herd. Ireland has been wreckless enough for the last ten years. We either start taking responsibility for ourselves like the much lauded Scandanavian countries, or we go the way of Greece.

If we want to go down the root of cancelling debt then we may as well go the whole hog and give houses to those who held off buying a house for whatever reason. At least that way we'd be rewarding everyone. Moral hazard problem solved :)
 
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