# What if bank adds 60k to borrowers salary on loan application?



## usernameinuse (26 Apr 2018)

Supposing a borrower, an ordinary single worker without a partner, applied for a mortgage, in the boom times. She supplied the bank with the normal written evidence and verification of her income. Her income was relatively low, so the bank, unknown to her at the time, inflated her income on paper by over €60,000 per year, so she would then meet the then lending criteria by the bank. She only discovered that after she obtained internal loan report documentation from the bank, following a data access request. The file she got from the bank shows that the bank was aware of her actual income and had documents from her employer proving same, but someone in the bank inflated it, in writing on the internal bank report, to a figure over €60,000 per year higher so they could lend the money. The loan was to be interest only for the first ten years: the borrower was not told what monthly capital and interest repayments would be, and has always paid interest only up until now.  The bank now wants capital and interest, which the borrower cannot afford.

Should the bank have had a duty of care to behave honestly to its customers?


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## dub_nerd (26 Apr 2018)

Sounds like a horrendous situation. Of course the bank should not have acted this way. Whether one could prove they should be liable is a different matter.

Something that always intrigues me -- presumably even the most financially naive person knows what the term "interest only" means. What did they think was going to happen after ten years? Did they think the property was going to have made them a gazillionaire (but that would be of no use unless they stopped needing somewhere to live). Or did they think their wages were going to increase dramatically so they could afford the capital repayments? Did they realise that by keeping the repayments a measly couple of hundred lower for the ten years, they would pay tens or even hundreds of thousands extra in interest? Or was ten years just too far in the future to be worried about?


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## Monbretia (26 Apr 2018)

Sounds like very dodgy practice, several people in bank would have to have passed the file through so all would have to be been in on it as such.   Also if the person ever got an actual loan offer did it not give on that some indication of what capital and interest payments could be on ending of fixed rate?


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## Brendan Burgess (26 Apr 2018)

Did she buy a house? 

Did she borrow the money? 

She knew she was on a salary of €30k and borrowed €300k. So what?  

If she is in Negative Equity, she could use this to negotiate a voluntary sale with the shortfall written off. 

Otherwise, if she can't afford her mortgage, she should thank whoever forged her salary for providing her with cheap accommodation for the last ten years.

Brendan


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## usernameinuse (26 Apr 2018)

Monbretia: "_Also if the person ever got an actual loan offer did it not give on that some indication of what capital and interest payments could be on ending of fixed rate?"   
_
No, there was no indication of what monthly capital and interest payments would be. Should she have been told?  If she was, it is unlikely she would have borrowed the money. She asked and was told not to worry, they would be affordable, they got her figures, the bank were the experts. Her area of expertise was and is nursing, she worked then as a nurse, is still working full time as a nurse. She is on variable interest rates since 2007, but the bank wants to put her on capital and interest repayments, which would be more than her take home pay now. 

I agree with you the file shows "very dodgy practice, several people in bank would have to have passed the file through so all would have to be been in on it as such", but what can she do now?  She has paid a fortune to live in a decent 3 bedroom property, albeit in a scenic rural part of south-west Ireland, after borrowing money she should not have got, and would not have got if the bank wrote the correct figures honestly. 

Incidentally the valuer for the house at the time, who was appointed by the bank and coincidentally a relation of the banker, made the property seem better security by describing it as a 5 bedroom with double glazed windows, when the property was and is a 3 bedroom with only one double glazed window, the rest are single glazed. Would head office have lent the money if it knew what the property was really like? The property is still in approx €180,000 negative equity and is unlikely to reach its 2007 value.


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## RedOnion (26 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> The property is still in approx €180,000 negative equity and is unlikely to reach its 2007 value.


Is she prepared to voluntarily surrender, and walk away?
Is it an active lender, or one that has left the market here?


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## Brendan Burgess (26 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> The property is still in approx €180,000 negative equity and is unlikely to reach its 2007 value.



Sounds as if she should go for a PIA.

She stupidly borrowed this amount of money. The bank stupidly lent her. 

The PIA will fix that. 

Brendan


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## usernameinuse (26 Apr 2018)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Sounds as if she should go for a PIA.
> 
> She stupidly borrowed this amount of money. The bank stupidly lent her.
> 
> ...



  With respect, I am not sure that a PIA would fix that, as according to PIA guidelines : " _The types of debt that are excluded and cannot be covered by a PIA are:_

_Debts arising from a loan (or forbearance of a loan) obtained through fraud or similar wrongdoing"_
Surely the fact the bank, unknown to her at the time, inflated her income on paper by over €60,000 per year, so she would then meet the then lending criteria by the bank, show the loan was obtained 
_"through fraud or similar wrongdoing" _on the part of the bank?


She is happy to surrender the property and walk away. However the bank says it wants the residual debt. The Bank is still active in the Irish market although the individual banker concerned with the loan and valuer have long since resigned or left. The borrower does not want the stress or stigma of going through a PIA when the banker and valuer got away with it, and when the borrower has proof of wrongdoing.


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## Monbretia (26 Apr 2018)

It's odd it was never queried by anyone in the bank, what nurse was earning even 60k not to mind 60k plus whatever the proper salary was, a loan application goes through so many hands in head office it's hard to believe it could get through without query as obviously p60 and payslips did not match the employers form.  It's not that I doubt you but there must have been a serious lot of people prepared to overlook this in the bank and also risk it being audited.  

Was it a bank with only one person in charge or what


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## michaelm (26 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> I am not sure that a PIA would fix that, as according to PIA guidelines : " _The types of debt that are excluded and cannot be covered by a PIA are:_
> 
> _Debts arising from a loan (or forbearance of a loan) obtained through fraud or similar wrongdoing"_


I expect that this refers to wrongdoing on the part of the borrower, which is not, on the face of it, the case here.


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## llgon (26 Apr 2018)

Monbretia,  there are plenty of nurses earning 60k plus, although the majority are not. It doesn't seem right to me that a nurse with more than ten years experience could be working full-time and have take-home pay less than that needed to cover the mortgage payments.


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## usernameinuse (26 Apr 2018)

It does not seem right to me that a banker or bankers, unknown to the borrower at the time, inflated her income on paper by over €60,000 per year, so she would then meet the then lending criteria by the bank head office. The house was bought in 2007 in a nice scenic area, at the top of the market. The valuer described the house incorrectly for the bank head office too. Repayments were variable interest only for the first 10 years. That is all in the file.

The borrower is single, part of the reason she never married or had kids or even socialised much was because of financial worries as a result of the loan. Should the borrower have been told what a typical "interest and capital" monthly repayment would be, after she requested that information? For example if interest rates were 3 or 5%?  She was not, no mention of that figure in the file obtained under a data access request.


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## Monbretia (26 Apr 2018)

llgon said:


> Monbretia,  there are plenty of nurses earning 60k plus, although the majority are not. It doesn't seem right to me that a nurse with more than ten years experience could be working full-time and have take-home pay less than that needed to cover the mortgage payments.



Yes I'm sure there are some but this was 11 yrs ago and assuming her correct salary was 30k then her stated salary was 90k with the extra added.   This would be a mighty fine salary in the south west of Ireland, I was a lender in that area at that time and I certainly would have looked twice and three times at a salary like that even if just in envy!


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## Monbretia (26 Apr 2018)

Usernameinuse - I presume she had a solicitor, did they bring anything in the loan offer to her attention regarding the repayments etc or the interest only term?   I presume she also got a copy of the valuation report, did she query the discrepancies in it?

Have you seen the actual loan offer?  I can't remember what they said at this stage re the repayments at end of interest only terms, definitely on fixed rate ones it gave an indication of what repayments might be depending on changes in interest rates at the end of the fixed term.

The initial change must have happened in branch rather than head office I assume or it wouldn't have got past the branch checks, I know strange stuff went on back in those days but in my experience it came in wrong to the branch usually having been altered before getting to application stage by one person or another!

Not saying no one in a bank ever changed anything as obviously time has told us that did happen but I never came across it in the bank itself but did see stuff come in wrong.


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## usernameinuse (26 Apr 2018)

Monbretia said:


> Usernameinuse - I presume she had a solicitor, did they bring anything in the loan offer to her attention regarding the repayments etc or the interest only term?


She asked her solicitor what the monthly repayments (interest and capital) would be but the solicitor did not know, she said to ask the bank. She asked the bank and was fobbed off, it would depend on future interest rates. She asked again and was told not to worry, they would be affordable, they got her figures, the bank were the experts, they had decades of experience, sure was property not going up in value all the time and wouldn't her wages increase during the ten years too and anyway the banker said (verbally) she could maybe extend the interest only period at the end of 10 years if she wanted to etc. She was told the most important thing was for her to get her foot on the ladder, it was a great investment etc.



Monbretia said:


> I presume she also got a copy of the valuation report, did she query the discrepancies in it?


No she did not get a copy of the valuation report until many years later when she obtained it in her file, after paying €6.35. Should she have got a copy of the valuation report at the time? Anyway the €6.35 was the best money she says she ever spent, to see what went on.There were two loan reports in the file. The first one was for her correct income, and the bank did not approve the loan. The second loan report shows the bank, unknown to her at the time, inflated her income on paper by over €60,000 per year, presumably so she would then meet the lending criteria by the bank.



Monbretia said:


> Have you seen the actual loan offer?


Yes.  No mention of what monthly repayments (interest and capital) would be.
I wonder if anyone would know if the bank was supposed to indicate what they would be likely to be in 10 years time if interest rates were eg 3%, 6% or whatever.



Monbretia said:


> Not saying no one in a bank ever changed anything as obviously time has told us that did happen but I never came across it in the bank itself but did see stuff come in wrong.


I suppose back in the day bankers were expected to grow their loan books and perhaps sometimes got bonuses for reaching targets.  I guess 99% of bankers behaved properly but as in some other professions and trades during the boom a few obviously did not. 

Going forward, the PIA guidelines are quite clear, and state the types of debt that are excluded and cannot be covered by a PIA include "Debts arising from a loan (or forbearance of a loan) obtained through fraud or similar wrongdoing". The borrower says that if there was not "fraud or similar wrongdoing" on the part of the banker and his relation, the valuer, she would not have obtained the loan, and her life would have been much better.


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## Monbretia (26 Apr 2018)

Yes but as previously pointed out that 'fraud or wrongdoing' referred to applies to the person applying for the PIA and as she seems to be unaware of the 'fraud' then I doubt that is relevant in this situation.

Re valuation reports, they were normally sent out with the loan offer, not sure when that regulation came in but it was there for a good while before I left.   Does she actually have her original copy of her own loan offer?

Interestingly when I finished in the bank I worked briefly for another company where I came in contact with mortgages as well, I came across several properties also in the scenic south west that had what I considered ridiculously inflated valuations used for the mortgages, while I have no qualifications in that area it was obvious that those in Head Office clearly were not local as not a hope were those valuations in any way accurate even in boom times.


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## usernameinuse (26 Apr 2018)

Monbretia said:


> It's odd it was never queried by anyone in the bank, what nurse was earning even 60k not to mind 60k plus whatever the proper salary was, a loan application goes through so many hands in head office it's hard to believe it could get through without query as obviously p60 and payslips did not match the employers form.



Thats why the borrower does not want the stress or stigma of going through a PIA when the banker and valuer got away with it, and when the borrower has proof of wrongdoing.  It was in the file the bank sent to her, along with copies of her payslips and P60 etc.

According to the PIA guidelines debts arising from a loan obtained through fraud or similar wrongdoing cannot be covered by a PIA anyway.  It does not specify if the fraud refers to wrongdoing on the part of the borrower or the lender, but the borrower has paid dearly over the last decade and would not risk doing 5 years time in a PIA only to be told just before the PIA is up that she is back at square one.  Perhaps if the banker and valuer were prosecuted, then she may consider a PIA.



Monbretia said:


> and as she seems to be unaware of the 'fraud' then...


The borrower is well aware of the fraud and wrongdoing by the bank since she obtained the file.



Monbretia said:


> Re valuation reports, they were normally sent out with the loan offer, not sure when that regulation came in but it was there for a good while before I left.


Would that regulation have been there during the later years of the celtic tiger do you think? It definitely was not sent in this case, the borrower got a shock many years later when it mentioned the extra bedrooms, double glazing etc.  Different type of house, but the house address was the same.



Monbretia said:


> Does she actually have her original copy of her own loan offer?


Yes.



Monbretia said:


> I came across several properties also in the scenic south west that had what I considered ridiculously inflated valuations used for the mortgages


Ever come across a valuation where for example major mistakes were made in factual matters eg describing it as a 5 bedroom with double glazed windows, when the property was and is a 3 bedroom with only one double glazed window, the rest are single glazed?


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## Monbretia (26 Apr 2018)

I meant she was unaware of the fraud when it happened, yes she knows now but she didn't know or go along with it at the time.

No never saw the actual valuation forms just the amount of valuation.  

Yes I would say that requirement to send out the valuation report with loan offer was there during celtic tiger, maybe not necessarily sent with loan offer but definitely given to client at some stage.


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## DeeKie (26 Apr 2018)

I’d say a good legal letter referencing the tort of deceit https://www.mhc.ie/uploads/Civil_Fraud2_Ireland.pdf and a suggestion that she might go public with this would have the bank back to table sharpish.


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## usernameinuse (26 Apr 2018)

Monbretia said:


> Yes I would say that requirement to send out the valuation report with loan offer was there during celtic tiger, maybe not necessarily sent with loan offer but definitely given to client at some stage.


Thanks for all the information. She definitely never got a copy of the valuation or saw a copy, until it came many years later in the file obtained for the €6.35 under the data act. That despite the fact she paid for the valuation, as requested by the banker. The valuation was not mentioned as being sent or included in any correspondence at the time of the mortgage. She queried the bank relatively recently about the valuation and she was told the valuation was for bank use only. Maybe that is one reason she was never given a copy, the other reason being more obvious!


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## Monbretia (26 Apr 2018)

Consumer Credit Act 1995
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1995/act/24/section/123/enacted/en/html#sec123

What is required on loan offer
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1995/act/24/schedule/3/enacted/en/html#sched3


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## Andy836 (26 Apr 2018)

She sounds like a chancer.

She took the loan. That's on her, no one else.


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## usernameinuse (26 Apr 2018)

Andy836 said:


> She sounds like a chancer.
> 
> She took the loan.



She was and is a hard working nurse who took the advice of the mortgage experts who had decades of experience. If she is a chancer, what you think the banker who added over €60,000 to her salary on the loan report was? Or his relation, the valuer, who got the address of the property correct but not the number of bedrooms, type of windows etc?  Or the bank, which in this instance did not comply with Consumer Credit Act 1995?


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## Andy836 (26 Apr 2018)

Either she took the loan or she didn't. That's pretty much all it comes down to.


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## dub_nerd (26 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> She asked her solicitor what the monthly repayments (interest and capital) would be but the solicitor did not know, she said to ask the bank. She asked the bank and was fobbed off, it would depend on future interest rates. She asked again and was told not to worry, they would be affordable, they got her figures, the bank were the experts, they had decades of experience, sure was property not going up in value all the time and wouldn't her wages increase during the ten years too and anyway the banker said (verbally) she could maybe extend the interest only period at the end of 10 years if she wanted to etc. She was told the most important thing was for her to get her foot on the ladder, it was a great investment etc.



But it _wasn't_ an investment if she bought it to live in. And she _didn't_ get a foot on the ladder -- she didn't pay one single cent off the loan in ten years. You say she took the advice of mortgage experts, but you don't have to be any kind of expert to know that if you don't pay for something you will never own it. It didn't matter what the payments were going to be in ten years time, she would already have flushed €100k down the drain. Did she realise that?

In any case, working out monthly repayments is about 30 seconds work with a spreadsheet or an online calculator and if you can't do it yourself there are plenty of people who know how. Meanwhile there were plenty of alarm bells going off -- the RTE documentary _Futureshock: Property Crash_ in April 2007 and Morgan Kelly's dire warnings of a crash in the Irish Times in December 2006. To be brutally honest, she sounds like the sort of person that the property boom depended on -- people who thought all their birthday's had come at once when they landed a mortgage they had thought they couldn't afford, and who failed to do any financial planning whatsoever.

I'm not trying to blame the victim here -- I think the banks acted like sleazy car salespeople at best, and gangsters at worst -- but she needs to realise there is not going to be any come back against the bank. The borrowing was her own responsibility and she should not have relied on glorified salespeople for advice. It sounds like she was determined to take a punt and her only regret is the price went down. I feel very sorry for her. She must feel like a complete fool (and she was, but who isn't at some point or another?). It is a forlorn hope that the bankers will somehow get blamed in order for her to save face and avoid embarrassment. She should focus on a PIA in order to start anew.


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## Dazzler123 (26 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> She was and is a hard working nurse who took the advice of the mortgage experts who had decades of experience. If she is a chancer, what you think the banker who added over €60,000 to her salary on the loan report was? Or his relation, the valuer, who got the address of the property correct but not the number of bedrooms, type of windows etc?  Or the bank, which in this instance did not comply with Consumer Credit Act 1995?



It makes literally no sense that the Bank would falsify the documents to give her a larger loan.  She requested X amount of a loan and got it.  At the time, there would have been no Central Bank mortgage limits based on income, but rather on the basis of the value of the security.  

At the end of it, she took out the loan and must repay it.  She requested the loan and got the benefit of the money.  There is no tort of reckless lending so she will get nowhere with that argument.


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## usernameinuse (26 Apr 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> It didn't matter what the payments were going to be in ten years time


Of course it did. If she could afford them she would pay the monthly capital and interest repayments, but they are more than her take home pay, so she cannot. She has spent most of her disposable income paying variable interest rates over the past decade. 



Dazzler123 said:


> It makes literally no sense that the Bank would falsify the documents to give her a larger loan.


Then why did the bank falsify her income on its internal loan report, and the valuer add 2 bedrooms and state all the windows were double glazed when only one was?  Its because head office would not pass a loan report for the amount of the loan if it was with her real salary, and was for a 3 bedroomed mostly single glazed house.


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## Dazzler123 (26 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Then why did the bank falsify her income on its internal loan report, and the valuer add 2 bedrooms and state all the windows were double glazed when only one was?  Its because head office would not pass a loan report for the amount of the loan if it was with her real salary, and was for a 3 bedroomed mostly single glazed house.



I'm saying that this defies logic for the Bank to do so.  I would question whether this is correct or not.  However, that aside....she wanted a particular property and requested a mortgage of X amount in order to buy it.   The Bank granted her that amount.  Lets say for arguments sake that the Bank did falsify her documents, it remains the case that she sought the money.  She was advised to get legal advice (as all borrowers are) before the mortgage and proceeded to get that advice.  I cannot accept that she was not aware of what the repayments would be and if not, it was within her power to find out.  Sorry, even if this is true, it remains the case that there is no tort of reckless lending and that she owes the Bank the full amount.  

PIA is a good option open to her in this scenario or to do some form of a deal with the Bank (perhaps mortgage to rent or simple debt forgiveness) however, I don't think there is any circumstance where she gets out of this unscathed.  It's unlikely that the theory of falsified documents will get her anywhere, in my opinion.


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

Dazzler123 said:


> I'm saying that this defies logic for the Bank to do so.


Nobody is suggesting it was general bank policy. Instead the file indicates it was someone in the bank who increased the borrowers salary by over 60k, and it was the individual valuer who submitted the incorrect valuation with its facts wrong.




Dazzler123 said:


> She was advised to get legal advice (as all borrowers are) before the mortgage and proceeded to get that advice.


 Who said that?  She used a solicitor to do the legal work in purchasing the property if that is what you mean.  She says no banker advised her to "get legal advice". 



Dazzler123 said:


> I cannot accept that she was not aware of what the repayments would be


She knew what the interest only repayments would be, but nowhere in her file or the banks file does it say how much the monthly capital and interest repayments would be once the interest only period expired. Should she have been told? 



Dazzler123 said:


> PIA is a good option open to her in this scenario


Not necessarily, not when there is doubt about PIA being suitable when the loan was obtained due to suspected fraud and wrongdoing on the part of the banker and valuer. 



Dazzler123 said:


> I don't think there is any circumstance where she gets out of this unscathed.


She certainly will not, she has paid the bank the best part of a few hundred thousand euro I think, and is ready to surrender the property back to the bank, yet the bank wants more. 



Dazzler123 said:


> It's unlikely that the theory of falsified documents will get her anywhere, in my opinion.


She has the documents, she did not falsify them, as she did not write the loan report or valuation, or even see them until many years later. She just gave the bank her payslips and P60 etc, copies of which were also in the file obtained from the bank. The bank has given no reason or explanation for the discrepancies in their own documentation, despite being asked to do so.  It is known the banker in question and the valuer have resigned or left their positions, perhaps for other reasons. Interesting you think it may be just a "theory" about the internal bank documents being falsified. If the borrower wanted to see it investigated further, should she contact the Garda fraud squad, and let them do so I wonder?


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## dub_nerd (27 Apr 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> It didn't matter what the payments were going to be in ten years time, she would already have flushed €100k down the drain. Did she realise that?





usernameinuse said:


> Of course it did. If she could afford them she would pay the monthly capital and interest repayments, but they are more than her take home pay, so she cannot. She has spent most of her disposable income paying variable interest rates over the past decade.





usernameinuse said:


> ...she has paid the bank the best part of a few hundred thousand euro I think



Leaving every other issue aside, did she realise she was not paying one single cent off the mortgage principal? "A few hundred thousand" implies monthly payments of €2-3k. At the very least she must have realised it was never going to get _cheaper_ when she had to start paying off capital. It sounds like she borrowed ten or twelve times salary, in which case it was never viable. If she was already spending most of her disposable income on interest only, what did she think was going to happen? Why is she looking for documentation now instead of whipping out a pencil and back of an envelope ten years ago, and figuring out what she was getting into?



usernameinuse said:


> ... there is doubt about PIA being suitable when the loan was obtained due to suspected fraud and wrongdoing on the part of the banker and valuer.


As multiple people have pointed out, that is a red herring.



usernameinuse said:


> ...and is ready to surrender the property back to the bank, yet the bank wants more.



Of course the bank wants more. It wants its money back. She hasn't paid a single cent of it yet. A PIA is her route to avoiding it.



usernameinuse said:


> If the borrower wanted to see it investigated further, should she contact the Garda fraud squad, and let them do so I wonder?



Nobody has been prosecuted for reckless lending in this country yet. Even if it happened, it wouldn't affect her case unless she also took a legal suit at her own expense, which she has no chance of winning. This sounds like a person in total denial and clutching at straws (which, by the way, is very understandable -- it's a horrible situation). She needs to face reality and move on from there.


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> "A few hundred thousand" implies monthly payments of €2-3k.


I wrote the "best part of a few hundred thousand euro" - that implies monthly interest payments of less than €1800.



dub_nerd said:


> At the very least she must have realised it was never going to get _cheaper_ when she had to start paying off capital.


Correct, but should she not have been told what they were likely to be, or given some figures at least?  Instead of just reassuring her that she could afford it, that the bank were the mortgage experts and they looked at her figures and decided she could afford it, they had decades of experience, perhaps she could roll over for another interest only period for 10 years and inflation would take care of the capital etc. That is what she was told.  



dub_nerd said:


> Why is she looking for documentation now instead of whipping out a pencil and back of an envelope ten years ago, and figuring out what she was getting into?


She has the documentation she wants now, thank you very much. She would urge all borrowers to pay the €6.35 and get their file, even if they are not in arrears. She did not know what current capital and interest repayments would be 10 years ago because she trusted the mortgage experts, they said that was their area of expertise but even they said they did not know what repayments would be in 10 years time but they reassured her they would be affordable or she could roll over for another interest only period while inflation are away at the capital. Hindsight is wonderful when you are advised by mortgage advisers, the experts. 



dub_nerd said:


> Of course the bank wants more. It wants its money back. She hasn't paid a single cent of it yet.


She paid  the guts of a few hundred grand, it did not cost the bank that to extend the credit because of its margins on variable rates. But you are correct, nothing came off the principal, which is one reason why she is prepared to surrender the property. 



dub_nerd said:


> Nobody has been prosecuted for reckless lending in this country yet.


Perhaps time an individual banker and valuer were investigated for fraud though? No harm in showing documents to the fraud squad?  It may lessen the chance of such things happening again?


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## dub_nerd (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> I wrote the "best part of a few hundred thousand euro" - that implies monthly interest payments of less than €1800.


You're being very coy about precise figures. Ok, so at typical prevailing rates for 2007 she bought a €400k house on what you have led us to believe is a modest salary. You've said that she spent most of her disposable income on the interest. She knew the repayments could only go up as capital + interest cannot possibly be less than interest only. So what exactly was she expecting?



usernameinuse said:


> Correct, but should she not have been told what they were likely to be, or given some figures at least?  Instead of just reassuring her that she could afford it, that the bank were the mortgage experts and they looked at her figures and decided she could afford it


Nobody, including a bank manager, has a crystal ball that tells them what rates will be in ten years time. So, no, she should not have been told what they were likely to be as that would be rank speculation. But you can go to this page, slide one slider to the value of the house, another slider to an interest rate, and it tells you what your repayments will be. Takes all of 30 seconds. A six year old child could use it.



usernameinuse said:


> ...they had decades of experience, perhaps she could roll over for another interest only period for 10 years and inflation would take care of the capital etc. That is what she was told.


So that's her excuse for acting bewildered now? "The bank manager told me that inflation would take care of the capital". Did she do anything over the years when it was becoming clear that inflation _wasn't_ taking care of anything? Does she realise that inflation high enough to wipe out your mortgage only happens in tandem with crushingly high interest rates that she would never have been able to afford? My sympathy is ebbing away -- this is all starting to sound ridiculous. 



usernameinuse said:


> She did not know what current capital and interest repayments would be 10 years ago because she trusted the mortgage experts, they said that was their area of expertise but even they said they did not know what repayments would be in 10 years time but they reassured her they would be affordable or she could roll over for another interest only period while inflation are away at the capital.


So you're telling me that she genuinely believed her repayments _would not go up_ when she had to repay the capital? Or, in fact, that she'd never have to pay the capital down _at all_, because "inflation would take care of it". And she took no advice from anybody except the person selling her the mortgage. Sounds like she's made her own bed. In fairness, there must have been lots of people equally clueless for our bubble to have grown to such outrageous proportions. I'm beginning to understand how it happened.



usernameinuse said:


> She paid  the guts of a few hundred grand, it did not cost the bank that to extend the credit because of its margins on variable rates.


Correct. It's called "making a profit". It's what banks are in business to do.



usernameinuse said:


> But you are correct, nothing came off the principal, which is one reason why she is prepared to surrender the property


Well that's good of her, to be prepared to relinquish a property she has paid precisely nothing for. Unfortunately, it's not worth what she owes to the bank, so she is insolvent. That's what a PIA can sort out for her. She is not going to turn it around any other way. The gardai are not going to call to the door to say they caught the culprit, oh and here's a cheque for €200k. That is fantasy land stuff.



usernameinuse said:


> Perhaps time an individual banker and valuer were investigated for fraud though? No harm in showing documents to the fraud squad?  It may lessen the chance of such things happening again?


I'd certainly love to see it happen. But it won't help your friend's case one iota. Her borrowing is her own responsibility.


----------



## Jim2007 (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> She was and is a hard working nurse who took the advice of the mortgage experts who had decades of experience.



She is an adult and as such, without evidence to the contrary, is assumed in law to be able to act in her own best interests.  If she felt she needed professional advice she was free to do so.  Whether she is hard working or otherwise is not relevant.



usernameinuse said:


> If she is a chancer, what you think the banker who added over €60,000 to her salary on the loan report was? Or his relation, the valuer, who got the address of the property correct but not the number of bedrooms, type of windows etc?



How the bank reached their decision to provide the loan is their business.  If the bank givens a loan to someone with sufficient income and obtain collateral that is insufficient to cover the loan then that is their problem and they will suffer the consequences of being unable to recover their loss.

However, the credit approval process in most banks is pretty rigorous, involving several sign offs at different levels and the credit risk officers are very experienced.  So the idea that someone could add 60K to a nurse's salary and that it would go unquestioned over several reviews, seems highly unlikely.



usernameinuse said:


> Or the bank, which in this instance did not comply with Consumer Credit Act 1995?



Which sections exactly?  They seem to have complied with S125, since she got a copy of the valuation report... which begs the question why did she not react to the errors.  And how exactly did she know that the valuer was a relative of someone in the bank??

A chancer, I don't know... but it appears we are getting a sanitised version of the story.


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## RichInSpirit (27 Apr 2018)

Hi Usernameinuse, I believe your story. But your friend is going to have an uphill battle going head to head against a bank.

I do however suggest a course of action, but it's totally just my own uninformed opinion.
Write to the bank explaining how they misbehaved and offer to keep paying them interest plus a tiny bit of capital. Maybe €20 capital per month.


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## Brendan Burgess (27 Apr 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> How the bank reached their decision to provide the loan is their business. If the bank givens a loan to someone with sufficient income and obtain collateral that is insufficient to cover the loan then that is their problem and they will suffer the consequences of being unable to recover their loss.



This is really the key point and it has been made by others. She applied for a loan. They gave it to her.  If they gave her 10 times her salary, she knew it was 10 times her salary.

The High Court has made it very clear that there is no defense of reckless lending: 

*Key Post - There is no legal defence of reckless lending ...*

You have been told numerous times that she should go for a PIA.  You seem to be deciding on her behalf that the rules prevent her from going for a PIA. You are wrong.  You must know that you are wrong. So I suspect that there is something else going on here that you are not telling us.

Tell your friend to go to a Personal Insolvency Practitioner. If she makes the appointment through Abhaile, it will cost her nothing. It's quite likely that the PIP will be able to do an informal deal with the lender and a PIA may not be necessary.

Brendan


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> How the bank reached their decision to provide the loan is their business.


But if someone gives the banker proof of income, payslips P60 etc and the banker adds over 60k to the salary in order to sell the loan, is that not fraud?  And is fraud and white collar crime not the fraud squads business?



Jim2007 said:


> If the bank givens a loan to someone with sufficient income and obtain collateral that is insufficient to cover the loan then that is their problem


Could be the taxpayers problem too when the banks had to be bailed out.  And the borrowers problem when Capital and Interest Repayments are more than net income. The banker should have known that such lending was unsustainable. 




Jim2007 said:


> However, the credit approval process in most banks is pretty rigorous, involving several sign offs at different levels and the credit risk officers are very experienced.  So the idea that someone could add 60K to a nurse's salary and that it would go unquestioned over several reviews, seems highly unlikely.


Which is why that did not happen in 99.99% of cases, and I think I should suggest to the borrower that the Gardai fraud squad should be shown the evidence in black and white of where the banker added the 60k+, and the valuers incorrect valuation where clear facts were wrong, and let them take it from there. 



Jim2007 said:


> Which sections exactly?  They seem to have complied with S125, since she got a copy of the valuation report...


As said before, she only got a copy of the valuation report many years later, when she paid €6.35 for her file under the data act mentioned.  So the bank did not compile with S125, for this and other reasons.




Jim2007 said:


> And how exactly did she know that the valuer was a relative of someone in the bank??


Outside major cities and towns stranger things have happened  Yes, the valuer was a relative of the banker.


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## newtothis (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> But if someone gives the banker proof of income, payslips P60 etc and the banker adds over 60k to the salary in order to sell the loan, is that not fraud?  And is fraud and white collar crime not the fraud squads business?



It certainly sounds like there's potential for a criminal action to have taken place, though it's not clear if it's fraud (who was defrauded?).

Perhaps it would be worth writing to the Central Bank, providing any evidence, and copy the bank to let them know the Central Bank have been informed, and see what happens?

Even if there isn't criminal action involved, I would imagine the Central Bank would want to know about this.


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## Jim2007 (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> But if someone gives the banker proof of income, payslips P60 etc and the banker adds over 60k to the salary in order to sell the loan, is that not fraud?  And is fraud and white collar crime not the fraud squads business?



Not fraud.  Go learn what fraud is.



usernameinuse said:


> Could be the taxpayers problem too when the banks had to be bailed out.  And the borrowers problem when Capital and Interest Repayments are more than net income. The banker should have known that such lending was unsustainable.



Not relevant to the situation being discussed.



usernameinuse said:


> Which is why that did not happen in 99.99% of cases, and I think I should suggest to the borrower that the Gardai fraud squad should be shown the evidence in black and white of where the banker added the 60k+, and the valuers incorrect valuation where clear facts were wrong, and let them take it from there.



Please do and you'll find they will have no interest in it, since it is not fraud.



usernameinuse said:


> As said before, she only got a copy of the valuation report many years later, when she paid €6.35 for her file under the data act mentioned.  So the bank did not compile with S125, for this and other reasons.





usernameinuse said:


> Outside major cities and towns stranger things have happened  Yes, the valuer was a relative of the banker.



Which is why there is a division of duties when it comes to making credit decisions.  The local managers have very limited input.

Based on your recent posting, I'm being to think chancer as well...


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## LDFerguson (27 Apr 2018)

Part of my job during the boom years involved arranging mortgages.  So I'm curious as to how this could have happened at all.  Even though lending practices were a lot more relaxed back then compared with now, there were still several checks on an application before it eventually drew down.  Some banks looked for payslips and bank statements; others didn't.  But all lenders I dealt with looked for a Salary Certificate and P60.  If the two didn't match the application, questions were asked.  

But you say it happened.  If it did, then it was wrong.  Unquestionably wrong.  No argument there.  

As has been said several times already, I think you're barking up the wrong tree in considering the fraud angle.  Who was defrauded?  Your friend wasn't defrauded.  She applied for a loan.  The bank offered her a loan.  She accepted their offer and their money.  How the bank arrived at offering her the loan is an internal matter for them.  So they sent memos to each other lying about her salary.  So they got a dodgy valuer to overvalue the property in order to circumvent their own internal systems.  If I may exaggerate the point, what's it to her if the bank's internal process was to accept her application, write memos to each other that she's a unicorn and/or that the house has 1,425 bedrooms and can fly, dance the Riverdance naked around the office and then print off her loan offer?  Her interaction with the bank remains the same.  She applied for a loan.  The bank offered her a loan.  She accepted their offer and their money.  How was SHE defrauded?  

I've only read this thread today but it occurs to me that you are not seeking advice here.  Your mind is already made up and you are only seeking validation.  Someone who will agree with you that you should go to the fraud squad.  Or agree with you that your friend is an entirely blameless victim in this.  You have been given lots of advice by lots of people here.  For what it's worth, like others I believe that you should explore the PIA option.  You seem to reject this because of the fraud you believe occurred.  Have you actually asked a PIP about this?  There's other good advice in the thread above.  I don't believe your friend is a blameless victim here.  If your story is true then she is a victim of reckless lending.  But she also must shoulder responsibility for the fact that she applied for a loan and must pay the loan back, or at least pay back what she can afford.


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> Not fraud. Go learn what fraud is.


Actually we all know what fraud is.
It is defined as "_wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain_". It is associated with sharp practice, cheating, swindling, trickery, artifice, deceit, deception etc.



newtothis said:


> It certainly sounds like there's potential for a criminal action to have taken place, though it's not clear if it's fraud (who was defrauded?).



Here is your answer, as provided by the next poster:


Jim2007 said:


> .. there is a division of duties when it comes to making credit decisions.  The local managers have very limited input.



If some local banker and / or valuer deliberately engaged in "_wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain_" for themselves ( commission, bonus, promotion, reaching a target or whatever), by tricking / deceiving / misleading others in the bank, perhaps their superiors, then that can only be described as fraud. So, newtothis, it is clear who was defrauded, and who ultimately will be out of pocket if the borrower goes for a PIA. The rogue banker and valuer, who are no longer working for the bank, defrauded the bank. You could say the banks shareholders were also defrauded, as they did not know or approve of such wrongdoing.

Nobody in the bank changed the loan report or reported facts on the valuation incorrectly just for the fun of it. The borrower was just a victim of the bankers and valuers wrongdoing - if they had acted properly the borrower would not be in this position.

The fact the banker and valuer are no longer working for the bank raises the question: were other borrowers affected and the bank covered up?



LDFerguson said:


> I don't believe your friend is a blameless victim here.


I don't either, and I agree she must shoulder responsibility for the fact that she applied for a loan. She has paid almost €200,000 to date and is willing to give back the property. However the lender wants more. Her own bank 11 years ago turned her down for a loan, and implied to her they would not lend her half the amount. That should have set alarm bells ringing in her head, but did not. Finance is not her area of expertise. She finds all this a bit complicated and would be unable to post here. When the banker said in 2007 that she could roll over the interest only period in 10 years time, she should have got that in writing.

Perhaps people today buying cars on pcp are in the same position in a way: they are not paying off the capital on a car and will never own it: they just have the use of the property during the loan and while they are making the payments.


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## elcato (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> She has paid almost €200,000 to date and is willing to give back the property.


Are you sure this is correct ? So the original price is in the region of 600k depending on the rates. 
Btw she has lived in the place for 10 years, this may well be the going rent for it. She would have had to rent elsewhere anyway.


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## Jim2007 (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> The fact the banker and valuer are no longer working for the bank raises the question: were other borrowers affected and the bank covered up?.



At this point this is just a rant with no credibility.  No of any further interest.


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## Buddyboy (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> She has paid almost €200,000 to date and is willing to give back the property.



Remember, the bank didn't buy the property, she did.  The bank lent her a sum of money, and that is what they want back, irrespective of what she did with it. (I know this is a bit of a simplification, but it is the way the bank will look at it). 
For her to have it any other way, a PIA would be a way to go. Everything else is noise, and a hiding to nothing.


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## Monbretia (27 Apr 2018)

I was just thinking about this again this morning, is the extra income put in as just salary or is it down as room rental or is the rental potential of the property?  You state it is in a scenic location, if it were a 5 bed house bought as a BTL for summer lettings could the extra income come under this scheme?  I know it doesn't really matter but you can't just lob 60k onto a basic salary from nowhere if it's not backed up in payslips and p60.   Potential room rental or any type of rental was very generously included back in those days!

I know you say the house is 3 bedroomed, as it happens I have a 5 bedroomed house but if anyone were to look around they would call it a 3 bed as only 3 bedrooms are fitted out as bedrooms, another one is a study and another I use as a craft room, however if I were selling in the morning they would be bedrooms for the purposes of valuation or sale.


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

Monbretia said:


> I know you say the house is 3 bedroomed


It is only 3 bedroom, no craft room or study, and no mention of rental.  You would not be able to rent out the other 2 bedrooms for over 60k a year anyway, it is quite a rural location.




Buddyboy said:


> the bank didn't buy the property, she did.


It is in effect the banks property until it is paid for in full, is it not?

The bank sent out a valuer of their own choosing to value the property to make sure it was as it was supposed to be and good security.  They got the borrower to pay for it but never gave a receipt and never sent a copy of the valuation (until the borrower got it many years later under data request). Why did the valuer, the bankers relation, say it was a 5 bedroom instead of a 3 bedroom, and say it was double glazed etc? 

A Personal Insolvency Practitioner (PIP) has said that debts arising from a loan (or forbearance of a loan) "obtained through fraud or similar wrongdoing" are not suitable for a PIA. He is to look further in to it but said if there is a question mark of fraud it may not be suitable, but it could be investigated further to see what went on. For example, he said, the borrower could have got the valuer to make an incorrect valuation for all he knows, or the banker to add 60 or 65k to their salary. Further investigation is necessary, he said.
If the Gardai Fraud squad can establish that any fraud and wrongdoing was completely internal to the bank, that should help the borrowers case in getting a PIA.


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## Brendan Burgess (27 Apr 2018)

This is getting really stupid now. You had not told us about the PIP before.

It seems probable that the PIP suspects your friend of active participation in the fraud which explains why a PIA would not be allowed.

If she lied about her salary or otherwise corroborated she does not deserve the protection of a PIA.

Brendan


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## newtothis (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> If some local banker and / or valuer deliberately engaged in "_wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain_" for themselves ( commission, bonus, promotion, reaching a target or whatever), by tricking / deceiving / misleading others in the bank, perhaps their superiors, then that can only be described as fraud. So, newtothis, it is clear who was defrauded, and who ultimately will be out of pocket if the borrower goes for a PIA. The rogue banker and valuer, who are no longer working for the bank, defrauded the bank. You could say the banks shareholders were also defrauded, as they did not know or approve of such wrongdoing.



I think you'll find that any criminal definition of fraud will have a very specific meaning and I would say it's likely to be questionable at best if what you describe meets that definition.

I'd ask samilar questions as others: what do you expect to happen or what do you believe should happen here?

I would suggest the best solution is to sell the house and if there is a shortfall on the loan amount use the questionable process around the granting of the loan as leverage in requesting it to be written down. I'd argue that something like that is a reasonable outcome for both parties.


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

Brendan Burgess said:


> You had not told us about the PIP before.


That is because the initial discussion with the PIP was just today.



Brendan Burgess said:


> It seems probable that the PIP suspects your friend of active participation in the fraud which explains why a PIA would not be allowed.


It may seem probable to you but the borrower did not write the internal loan report or make out the valuation. The P60 and payslips were correct and not tampered with. My friend is keen for the fraud squad to look in to it so the people who prepared the loan report and valuation can be properly interviewed, and they can explain their reports.


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## dub_nerd (27 Apr 2018)

As Brendan said, the PIP is only interested in _whether your friend defrauded the bank_, which would make them ineligible for a PIA. After that it's really very simple: she borrowed the money at an agreed amount and an agreed rate and is 100% personally responsible for knowing what she was getting into and paying it back. If she cannot pay it she needs to declare herself insolvent.

At this stage it seems that your "advice" is potentially compounding the problems she got herself into ten years ago, and causing her new problems today with the PIP. Even if major irregularities were found with the bank's internal procedures, it would be the bank that had been defrauded, not your friend. It's clear she's clutching at straws and willing to listen to another equally deluded person willing to entertain the notion that she shouldn't have to pay the money back, i.e. you. Understandable, but pointless and potentially damaging.


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## Andy836 (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> *My friend is keen for the fraud squad to look in to it* so the people who prepared the loan report and valuation can be properly interviewed, and they can explain their reports.



LOL

Seriously.


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> As Brendan said, the PIP is only interested in _whether your friend defrauded the bank_, which would make them ineligible for a PIA.


Actually, having seen the copy of the loan report, P60, payslips etc the PIP said he is interested in seeing justice done and the banker and valuer investigated too.



dub_nerd said:


> At this stage it seems that your "advice" is potentially compounding the problems she got herself into ten years ago,


I did not give my friend advice, except to pay €6.35 to get her file from the bank, and recently to go to a PIP for their opinions. 



dub_nerd said:


> Even if major irregularities were found with the bank's internal procedures, it would be the bank that had been defrauded, not your friend.



Correct.  I said "The rogue banker and valuer, who are no longer working for the bank, defrauded the bank. You could say the banks shareholders were also defrauded, as they did not know or approve of such wrongdoing."  The effect of the incorrect, some would say fraudulent loan report and valuation meant my friend got a loan she should not have got, and is at a loss as a result, but the banker and valuer did not set out to deceive the borrower by the incorrect loan report or valuation, as she did not see them until many years later.  In fact she may not have seen them at all had I not suggested she get a copy of her file for €6.35 



Andy836 said:


> LOL
> 
> Seriously.



Yes. Because the Bank will not explain why the loan report shows her salary over 60k more than her real salary (as proven by payslips, P60 etc), and the untrue valuation, my friend wants it investigated and explained. It might stop the same thing happening to others in future.


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## Dazzler123 (27 Apr 2018)

Your friend has not incurred a loss, the Bank has.  She received whatever the loan sum was and she purchased a house which she now owns.  The Bank has suffered a loss as they have not received any repayments of the principal sum after several years.

There are several issues with this story that are not very credible but if your friend wants to go to the Fraud Squad, off she goes.  I wouldn't bother personally as there are too many holes in the story and it also will not be of any assistance to your friend, who will still have to repay the Bank. 

If you really want to help  your friend, go see another PIP as it does not appear that he is recommending a PIA.  If he is, then stick with him.  That is the only way your client will resolve this matter without a great deal of stress and forcible loss of her home.


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## cremeegg (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Finance is not her area of expertise. She finds all this a bit complicated and would be unable to post here. When the banker said in 2007 that she could roll over the interest only period in 10 years time, she should have got that in writing.
> 
> Perhaps people today buying cars on pcp are in the same position in a way: they are not paying off the capital on a car and will never own it: they just have the use of the property during the loan and while they are making the payments.




Excellent point.


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## cremeegg (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> My friend is keen for the fraud squad to look in to it



Ridiculous point. The fraud squad is not some type of free of charge, private detective.


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## PaddyBloggit (27 Apr 2018)

Your friend must have had some very thick blinkers on when she took out her loan.

Unless she's a complete idiot she would have realised that the amount she was borrowing was so many multiples of her salary at the time.

It suited her at the time for the figures to work the way they did so she ran with them. She's not entirely blameless in the whole scenario.


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

PaddyBloggit said:


> Unless she's a complete idiot she would have realised that the amount she was borrowing was so many multiples of her salary at the time.


Unless the bankers were complete idiots they would have realised that the amount she was borrowing was so many multiples of her salary at the time.  After all, she supplied them with her P60, payslips etc.  Yet the banker reassured her everything was ok, after adding over 60k to her salary on the loan report, unknown to the borrower.



PaddyBloggit said:


> It suited her at the time for the figures to work the way they did so she ran with them. She's not entirely blameless in the whole scenario.


Nobody suggested she was completely blameless. She should have been much less trusting of the mortgage experts. At the very least she should have got the bank to indicate how much capital and interest repayments would be.  She would have walked if she got that information.




cremeegg said:


> The fraud squad is not some type of free of charge, private detective.


If they are not interested in investigating white collar wrongdoing, they will say so. I'd imagine it will be no harm to show them the dodgy documents and valuation, and the lack of explanation from the bank, and see what they say.  Some people have been prosecuted for a lot less.


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## Dazzler123 (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> If they are not interested in investigating white collar wrongdoing, they will say so. I'd imagine it will be no harm to show them the dodgy documents, and the lack of explanation from the bank, and see what they say.  Some people have been prosecuted for a lot less.



I'd love to know who these "some people" are so they could appeal their sentences... There is a very high standard of proof to secure a criminal conviction and some alterations to documents by parties unknown, would not be proof beyond reasonable doubt.

You clearly are not interested in taking on the good advice that has already been posted as you clearly know better.  Best of luck with it.


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## dub_nerd (27 Apr 2018)

PaddyBloggit said:


> It suited her at the time for the figures to work the way they did so she ran with them. She's not entirely blameless in the whole scenario.


More than that, she was doggedly determined to get the loan, having been told she wasn't qualified to borrow half the amount. Funny how someone who "knows nothing about finance" is cute enough to _get_ the money, and only comes over all stupid when it's time to pay it back.



usernameinuse said:


> At the very least she should have got the bank to indicate how much capital and interest repayments would be.  She would have walked if she got that information.


Complete rubbish. She didn't walk when she was offered more than twice what another bank considered her qualified to borrow. She didn't bother to ask the nearest person capable of using a website to bang the numbers into a mortgage calculator. This story is balderdash. She wants to make believe that she was defrauded into taking out a loan. She wasn't.


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

Dazzler123 said:


> She didn't bother to ask the nearest person capable of using a website to bang the numbers into a mortgage calculator.


Did every nearest person in rural Ireland in 2007 have broadband, never mind know what a mortgage calculator was? 



Dazzler123 said:


> some alterations to documents by parties unknown


The bank should have a record of who prepared the loan report, and whose job it was to verify the borrowers payslip / P60 etc.  Paper trail   And there was only one valuer involved in the valuation. Surely no harm in looking for an explanation anyway, the PIP said its better to do that before proceeding with a PIA.


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## dub_nerd (27 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Did every nearest person in rural Ireland in 2007 have broadband, never mind know what a mortgage calculator was?


So now we've resorted to dissing the peasants. We're talking about Ireland ten years ago, not the African Rift Valley in the Paleolithic.


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## usernameinuse (27 Apr 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> So now we've resorted to dissing the peasants. We're talking about Ireland ten years ago..


'Tis far from dissing the peasants I am. You are the one who wrote "She didn't bother to ask the nearest person capable of using a website to bang the numbers into a mortgage calculator."  In December 2006 Ireland had only 430,000 broadband subscribers, and those were mostly subscribers in cities like Dublin.  With respect, I do not think you understood rural Ireland in 2007, dub_nerd, if you think most people then knew what a mortgage calcalutor was never mind had broadband. Sure the mortgage experts should have had mortgage calculators then, but I'd suggest most other people had not broadband never mind had a mortgage calculator, or ever used a mortgage calculator.


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## dub_nerd (27 Apr 2018)

With respect, I was _living in very rural Ireland_ in 2006, owing to realising the housing market was in an insane bubble because of people like your friend, and refusing to jump on the housing bandwagon in Dublin. I had dial-up internet which was easily enough for accessing a mortgage calculator. Not that you even need an online calculator, you can do it with a pencil and paper and secondary school mathematics. You don't even need _that_ to calculate your outgoings on an interest-only mortgage. You said she spent most of her disposable income as if that came as a big surprise. That would have been a case of multiplying two numbers, something like this: €430k x 5% = €21.5k/yr = €1,800/month.  You said this person was a qualified nurse? Don't they require at least a basic education?


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## usernameinuse (28 Apr 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> You don't even need _that_ to calculate your outgoings on an interest-only mortgage.


She did not need to calculate her outgoings on the interest only repayments, the bank told her what those would be. The banker would not and did not tell her what the capital and interest monthly repayments would be after 10 years, only that they would be affordable, the bank were the experts and had examined her figures, they had decades of experience and anyway if she wanted she could roll over for interest only for another 10 years.

I'd say most people, if they got their mortgage file from the bank, would see that

the bank did not add over 60k to their salary in the loan report,
told the borrower what monthly interest and capital repayments would be
would not get basis facts wrong on the valuation report, which they were supposed to give to the borrower but did not.


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## Brendan Burgess (28 Apr 2018)

To be fair to our nursing friend, most people do not do any such calculations either on pen and paper or with an online mortgage calculator. 

They go to the bank and they ask how much they can borrow and what the repayments are.  
Even if they can't afford the repayments, they often borrow the money on the grounds that they will let out a room or that their income will improve. 

Interest only on a cheap tracker was very affordable for a lot of people. 

I am not justifying this approach - just explaining it.

I can remember only a few people ever saying  "The bank will lend us €300,000 but we can only afford repayments on €250,000 so we are going to buy a house which we can afford, rather than a nicer house" 

Brendan


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## newtothis (28 Apr 2018)

This thread seems to have to meandered off into different directions. 

You asked in your original post:



usernameinuse said:


> Should the bank have had a duty of care to behave honestly to its customers?



I’d say most people would answer this as “yes”. However, what comes next? You seem to be suggesting she should be entitled to some form of compensation, under threat of calling in the guards. My view is that she’s already had her compensation: living in what’s presumably a very nice house for the past few years at a cost nobody else could achieve.

Even if a crime was committed, the closest analogy I can think of is someone who innocently buys stolen goods; they have the use of the goods until the crime is detected, but would anyone argue the case they should be entitled to keep them indefinitely? I think you'll find that what happens is that the stolen goods are handed back, and they are left high and dry.

As I said before, my suggestion would be to report this to the regulator (the Central Bank), with the anticipated result that regardless of what happens they will have to surrender a house they clearly can’t afford.


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## RETIRED2017 (28 Apr 2018)

What is she earning now can she afford to pay back loan and keep her nice house, she should be on or near the top of her scale by now,


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## usernameinuse (28 Apr 2018)

newtothis said:


> My view is that she’s already had her compensation: living in what’s presumably a very nice house for the past few years at a cost nobody else could achieve.


Its a decent house in a scenic area, but I would not describe it as a very nice house. It is only 3 bedroom, no fancy features, all but one of the windows are single glazed etc. Not energy efficient either. I would disagree she is living there for the past few years at a cost nobody else could achieve.  She has paid almost €200,000 in variable interest rates since 2007, and if she had rented since then in a the same rural area, rent would have been less than than figure, not more.  You can rent similar oldish 3 bedroom houses in rural Ireland for less than say 1440 per month quite easily. She had to pay €11,000 on major roof repairs (part had to be replaced), and money on other replacements too eg boiler. In fairness to her she has not lived there for the "past few years at a cost nobody else could achieve". She has not married or had kids or even socialised much as a result of financial worries.




RETIRED2017 said:


> What is she earning now can she afford to pay back loan and keep her nice house, she should be on or near the top of her scale by now,



No, she cannot afford capital and interest repayments now, but in fairness most people - certainly both the banker and herself - expected in 2007 that her salary would keep on increasing like it had in the previous number of years, and neither expected the house to be worth so much less 11 years later either. I am not excusing the borrower, she has to take some blame, I am just stating the reality.There are even vacant houses in her locality now, rural Ireland is not like Dublin.



newtothis said:


> As I said before, my suggestion would be to report this to the regulator (the Central Bank)


Unfortunately the Central Bank does not investigate individual consumer complaints.  

The PIA seems the best route to go down, thanks for everyones suggestion. She had just one meeting with a PIP so far, yesterday in fact, and he looked at the P60, payslips etc, loan report, valuation etc. He said it would be better to have the loan report and valuation investigated, or answers obtained about same, before proceeding with the PIA.



newtothis said:


> .. regardless of what happens they will have to surrender a house they clearly can’t afford.


She knows that, she does not mind surrendering the house. She would prefer to live in an easier to heat dwelling closer to her work and not in the sticks anyway. She thinks that at least if the Gardai Fraud squad investigates it, other borrowers may not have to go through what she has gone through.


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## Maz2408 (28 Apr 2018)

I was sold mortgage in the exact same way.  Local branch appointment, submitted pay slips and P60s was asked to have employer sign a salary cert, I still remember him saying make sure he only signs it as we can't have any descrepencies between salary cert and pay slips, no idea at the time he was actually getting us to hand over a blank salary cert so he could insert a ridiculous wage on it to make sure mortgage was approved.  Interest only payments discussed, no discussion of capital repayments.  Property was never going to be a long term keeper, so why worry about repayments i'd never have to make asked the now retired broker.  I didn't even know he was a broker until years later as we were in a local branch of an Irish bank.  

To all the critics above with the it's her own fault attitude, she should have checked the information she was offered.  Hindsight is an amazing thing.  10 years ago around 95% of the population would never have dreamt that banks would commit fraud in pursuit of profit.  No one went online and typed in, are banks defrauding customers, because no one including our own government believed that could happen.

You went to a bank believing the information they were giving you was true, correct and in your best interest because they were the experts in that field.

Out of interest, how would it be if the Nurse in question gave you incorrect information regarding medication or treatment for say your 6 year old Child or your 80 year old Mother and it caused them serious harm.  Would the nurse be to blame or would it be your fault for being stupid in acting on her expert advice?


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## PaddyBloggit (28 Apr 2018)

Maz2408 said:


> You went to a bank believing the information they were giving you was true, correct and in your best interest because they were the experts in that field.
> 
> Out of interest, how would it be if the Nurse in question gave you incorrect information regarding medication or treatment for say your 6 year old Child or your 80 year old Mother and it caused them serious harm. Would the nurse be to blame or would it be your fault for being stupid in acting on her expert advice?



But ... it's not rocket science knowing/finding out what multiple of your annual salary can be got as a mortgage amount. I bought my first house at 26 and I read up about what I needed to do and what I could get as a multiple of my salary etc. I knew what I could afford before I approached a bank and I cut my cloth to measure.

Maxwell House at the time had a book about the steps involved in buying your own home. I picked up more info as I went along and I read my offer letter from the bank before I signed on the dotted line.

The OP's friend is complicit in a situation by error of omission.. the omission of failing to keep her eye on the ball.

Saying all that, the bank should not have fiddled the numbers for her either. She couldn't/can't afford the result of that fiddle.


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## newtothis (28 Apr 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Unfortunately the Central Bank does not investigate individual consumer complaints.


True, but I wouln't see it as a consumer complaint (she's not exactly been disadvanged in some way by the bank), but rather the discovery of very questionable behaviour by a bank, which presumably they would be interested in. 


usernameinuse said:


> She knows that, she does not mind surrendering the house. She would prefer to live in an easier to heat dwelling closer to her work and not in the sticks anyway. She thinks that at least if the Gardai Fraud squad investigates it, other borrowers may not have to go through what she has gone through.


Again, I'm not sure what you're asking then. The reason I suggested the regulator rather than the Gardai is that it's not clear an actual crime has been committed, and from what I hear the Gardai have more than enough resourcing issues investigating clear-cut cases without having to spend time discovering if a crime has been committed or not.


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## Maz2408 (28 Apr 2018)

@PaddyBloggit.  Fair play, you did your research before approaching a financial institution, I'm assuming this was pre-2007 as I don't think there's a mortgagee in the Country who would approach a bank today without doing their homework. My point was, many thousands didn't do what you did pre-2007 because we just wrongly assumed banks would never do anything dishonest or with complete disregard of customers ability to repay.   

As I said Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  As for it not being rocket science, I'd have to disagree. I would assume the banks would disagree as well, after all they continued to borrow billions from other financial institutions even though they had no ability to pay it back, maybe they should have read up on it.


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## ashambles (28 Apr 2018)

Even smart people avoid thinking too much about some topics. They don't want to know. It could be a mortgage, a pension, their own medical health etc.. Everyone one has their blind spots.

Leaving that aside, it's inevitable that banks needed to apply different income multiples or salary projections for interest only loans.

Interest only loans for regular home purchases were introduced when normal purchasers couldn't pay the inflated price with a regular loan.
If the same criteria applied to an IO loan as to a regular mortgage then the introduction of the IO loan would be pointless, someone who couldn't afford a normal mortgage also couldn't afford the IO loan.

So it seems the banks started estimating what a salary would be at the end of IO, for public servants of the bubble era that would have been based on ludicrous 9% p.a. payrises.

I'd assume the CB gave banks the go ahead to give out interest only loans without considering that it made it inevitable the banks would adjust their loan criteria. The CB, arguably, at least implicitly gave banks the go ahead to adjust the criteria by allowing them to sell IO mortgages.

The CB should have stopped IO mortgages before they started, politely have told the banks where to go.  But they didn't want to know about a lot of worrying things either.


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## dub_nerd (28 Apr 2018)

Maz2408 said:


> To all the critics above with the it's her own fault attitude, she should have checked the information she was offered.  Hindsight is an amazing thing.  10 years ago around 95% of the population would never have dreamt that banks would commit fraud in pursuit of profit.  No one went online and typed in, are banks defrauding customers, because no one including our own government believed that could happen.



As ashambles says, nobody wanted to know. People were drunk on the idea of owning expensive property -- it was a badge of honour to spend more than you can afford. Lots of people told me they'd "just signed their life away". They were right. With my own acquaintances I tried to persuade them that inflation would never wipe out their mortgages as it had done for their parents. I'm happy I saved one family member from disaster (as well as myself). And there was no possible justification for the price increases we were seeing -- even in 2005 when people couldn't believe there was any air left in the property bubble we were still 30% off the top! I never considered it to be anything other than a hysterical mania of monumental proportions. It only worked because there were loads of reckless borrowers for every reckless lender.

At the end of 2006 Morgan Kelly painted a picture that should have stopped everyone in their tracks, if nothing else had. He told us exactly what was going to happen, in precise detail, ahead of time. 2007-08 were the "Wily Coyote years", the years when the property market went over the cliff but kept pawing the air for a last moment before gravity took over. The people who bought then were the most unfortunate, prices hadn't fallen yet but the market had totally seized up, with only the last few clueless stragglers available to be fleeced. I'd like to say it was painful but at least we learned our lesson. But instead we're busily reinflating the same bubble again! Anyone who thinks "this time is different" needs to get in their time machine and go back to 2007 when the "experts" were last telling us "this time is different".


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## usernameinuse (1 May 2018)

PaddyBloggit said:


> Saying all that, the bank should not have fiddled the numbers for her either.


Someone in the bank fiddled the figures unknown to her, it was not "for her".  It was for the bankers own commission or bonus or promotion or whatever.  It was not done for the borrowers benefit. In fact as said before the borrower has not married or had kids or even socialised much as a result of financial worries. 



Maz2408 said:


> Out of interest, how would it be if the Nurse in question gave you incorrect information regarding medication or treatment for say your 6 year old Child or your 80 year old Mother and it caused them serious harm.  Would the nurse be to blame or would it be your fault for being stupid in acting on her expert advice?


Good analogy.  The bank were the financial experts and they said they were themselves, with decades of experience. They should have known it would only end in tears for everyone else (the banks shareholders, those who borrowed from the bank etc) if they lent 10 or 20 times the borrowers annual income by the bank altering the figures for the loan report. A nurse or doctor would not give incorrect information for medication or treatment, for the nurse or doctors short term gain, if the patient gave them written correct information?  



Maz2408 said:


> As for it not being rocket science, I'd have to disagree. I would assume the banks would disagree as well, after all they continued to borrow billions from other financial institutions even though they had no ability to pay it back, maybe they should have read up on it.


Correct. Not all banks or bankers can be tarred with the same brush though. Some bankers refused to lend individuals half the amount other bankers did.


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## Jim Stafford (1 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> A Personal Insolvency Practitioner (PIP) has said that debts arising from a loan (or forbearance of a loan) "obtained through fraud or similar wrongdoing" are not suitable for a PIA.



The PIP is correct in advising that debts obtained through fraud do not qualify for a PIA.  However, that provision is to deal with debtors "obtaining" loans fraudulently, not with debtors who are "given" loans fraudulently.

I would not have a difficulty in progressing such a PIA. I would progress it by making full transparent disclosure, and, ultimately, it would be up to the judge to approve.

However, the difficulty the nurse would have is that she doe not appear to qualify for a Section 115A PIA (i.e. it appears that she was not in arrears as at 1 January 2015.) and thus the bank could veto the deal.  She would have to make the PIA "attractive" to the bank to encourage them to vote yes.

Some of the "fraudulent" acts that we have seen carried out (not that many by the way) are stranger than fiction.  As one banker said to me half way through a court case that my clients were defending "Jim, we are beyond embarrassment at this stage.   We do not care what comes out in court".  It all came out in court but the bank still got their judgment!

Jim Stafford


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## usernameinuse (1 May 2018)

_"He is to look further in to it but said if there is a question mark of fraud it may not be suitable, but it could be investigated further to see what went on. For example, he said, the borrower could have got the valuer to make an incorrect valuation for all he knows, or the banker to add 60 or 65k to their salary. Further investigation is necessary, he said.
If the Gardai Fraud squad can establish that any fraud and wrongdoing was completely internal to the bank, that should help the borrowers case in getting a PIA."_



Jim Stafford said:


> The PIP is correct in advising that debts obtained through fraud do not qualify for a PIA.  However, that provision is to deal with debtors "obtaining" loans fraudulently, not with debtors who are "given" loans fraudulently.


Thanks for that. Excluded debt is "debt or liability of the debtor arising from a loan (or forbearance of a loan) obtained through fraud, misappropriation, embezzlement or fraudulent breach of trust". Where does it mention about the fraudulent loan being "obtained" or "given" or a bit of both?


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## Jim Stafford (1 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Where does it mention about the fraudulent loan being "obtained" or "given" or a bit of both?



Section 2 (1) of the 2012 Act: "_obtained through fraud"._

I would make full disclosure.  The bank could then object if they disagreed etc

Jim Stafford


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## usernameinuse (1 May 2018)

Yes, and the bit I see ""_obtained through fraud" _is the same as I quoted. It does not mention fraud by any particular party.  

Unless all the "t" are crossed and the "i"s dotted first before the PIA, the borrower is worried there may be a risk she could undergo say 4 years of a PIA and then land back at square one. Anyway, I'll let the borrower and her PIP worry discuss those things, I think they will be having a second meeting in due course. 



Jim Stafford said:


> As one banker said to me half way through a court case that my clients were defending "Jim, we are beyond embarrassment at this stage.   We do not care what comes out in court".


Maybe if a few end up in jail, like dozens of bankers have in Iceland (population 330,000), then the rotten apples in banking circles here will care?


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## Leo (2 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Yes, and the bit I see ""_obtained through fraud" _is the same as I quoted. It does not mention fraud by any particular party.



In a load arrangement, one party (in this case your friend) *obtains *a loan, the other party (in this case the bank) *provides *the loan.


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## usernameinuse (2 May 2018)

Leo said:


> In a load arrangement, one party (in this case your friend) *obtains *a loan, the other party (in this case the bank) *provides *the loan.


Correct, and in this case, it could be excluded debt, if it is _"debt or liability of the debtor arising from a loan (or forbearance of a loan) obtained through fraud, misappropriation, embezzlement or fraudulent breach of trust".  _Hence it is better to have the loan report and valuation explained or investigated. Thank you.


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## Leo (2 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Correct, and in this case, it could be excluded debt, if it is _"debt or liability of the debtor arising from a loan (or forbearance of a loan) obtained through fraud, misappropriation, embezzlement or fraudulent breach of trust".  _Hence it is better to have the loan report and valuation explained or investigated. Thank you.



Perhaps, that all depends on the role your friend played here. We have all heard stories of people who were encouraged by a mortgage broker to put down on the form that they intended to rent a room, or other what they considered 'while lies', it might be argued that these people obtained these loads through fraud.

If you friend played no such part whatsoever in any misrepresentation, then to my mind they did not obtain the load through fraud. The bank may have broken rules in terms of providing the loan, but that's a different matter.


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## usernameinuse (2 May 2018)

Leo said:


> Perhaps, that all depends on the role your friend played here. We have all heard stories of people who were encouraged by a mortgage broker to put down on the form that they intended to rent a room, or other what they considered 'while lies', it might be argued that these people obtained these loads through fraud.
> 
> If you friend played no such part whatsoever in any misrepresentation, then to my mind they did not obtain the load through fraud. The bank may have broken rules in terms of providing the loan, but that's a different matter.



Room rental was never mentioned, but in any case room rental in an oldish house in such a rural location would not have come anywhere close to 60k. I agree it is best to establish if a bank official or officials were guilty of fraud or whatever in approving the loan, and to establish the borrower had no knowledge or part or act in same. The loan would not have been approved if the bank had used the P60, payslips etc the borrower submitted, and a valuation with basic facts correct.


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## Leo (2 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Room rental was never mentioned...



I only stated that as an example of where a borrower might be complicit as it was a tactic used by some brokers to obtain approval for greater amounts, regardless of the area.


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## usernameinuse (2 May 2018)

Leo said:


> I only stated that as an example of where a borrower might be complicit as it was a tactic used by some brokers to obtain approval for greater amounts



Fair enough. Even if potential room rental (draughty oldish 3 bedroom rural house) was included in the borrowers salary,and there is no mention it was, it would only account for maybe 5 or 10% of the over €60k the bank added in the loan report. The P60 and payslips showed the borrowers salary exactly. I agree further clarification or investigation is necessary.


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## Leo (2 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Fair enough. Even if potential room rental (draughty oldish 3 bedroom rural house) was included in the borrowers salary,and there is no mention it was, it would only account for maybe 5 or 10% of the over €60k the bank added in the loan report. The P60 and payslips showed the borrowers salary exactly.



Again, it was only mentioned by way of attempting to explain an example of a borrower potentially obtaining a loan through fraud, and how that is different to a bank manipulatingnumbers to arrive at a figure the borrower is looking for.



usernameinuse said:


> I agree further clarification or investigation is necessary.



You know you're just agreeing with yourself there?


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## usernameinuse (2 May 2018)

Leo said:


> Again, it was only mentioned by way of attempting to explain an example of a borrower potentially obtaining a loan through fraud, and how that is different to a bank manipulatingnumbers to arrive at a figure the borrower is looking for.


And that is precisely why clarification from the bank, or investigation in to the bank, is necessary to determine what happened, and why the loan report had over 60k added to the borrowers salary, why the valuation had basic facts wrong.  5 bedroom instead of 3 bedroom, double glaze instead of all but one windows single glazed etc. 
 If there is a suspicion of fraud or wrongdoing, it would be best to establish who was at fault, as the PIP said that debts arising from a loan obtained through fraud or similar wrongdoing are not suitable for a PIA.


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## RedOnion (2 May 2018)

Do you want to help your friend, or just looking for people to agree that bankers and valuers should all be put in jail?

You've got more valid advice than appears in most threads, but you don't appear to be listening to it.

For example, one of the posters above has posted under his actual name. If you really wanted to help your friend, you'd take 2 minutes to Google his name and realise it might be better to consider his advice than argue he doesn't understand the intention of the word 'obtained' in legislation.

Just my 2 cents.


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## usernameinuse (2 May 2018)

The advice was for my friend to go to a PIP.  She has done so with a well respected one and I understand has a second meeting arranged with him. I think she or the PIP may be getting further or second opinion, I'll leave that up to them.

No I do not think "bankers and valuers should all be put in jail"! What put that in your head? The vast majority of them behaved and behave honestly and ethically, same as most other professions.


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## Palerider (2 May 2018)

Brokers enhanced applications, added such items as overtime suggesting it was ' guaranteed overtime ', when you had a system that rewarded brokers with a percentage of loan drawdown as their commission income well you had a dysfunctional relationship, it was all ok back in the day but in retrospect it was daft.

Banks want to lend their money to people that are good repayers of previous loans, when figures are inflated so that applicants get their loans when in reality it would be a struggle then it hurts all of us.


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## Leo (3 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> If there is a suspicion of fraud or wrongdoing, it would be best to establish who was at fault



If, as you say, there were issues with the bank's internal processes, that's their problem. What has your friend to gain going down that particular rabbit hole? It won't be news to the bank that data on such forms was manipulated. As Palerider suggests above it happened all the time. You/ your friend need to focus on how best to move forward and not get too invested in the prospect of any enquiry ever looking into this in any detail.


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## usernameinuse (3 May 2018)

Leo said:


> As Palerider suggests above it happened all the time.


What happened all the time? A nurse submitted per P60 , payslips etc and a banker added over 60k on to her salary on internal loan reports so he could mislead his superiors / sell the mortgage / have the nurse borrow maybe 12 or 15 times her salary and have her life changed for the worse as a result, as he knew, or should have known, would happen? A valuer got even basic facts wrong on a valuation? No, that did not happen "all the time". Bank shareholders and the public deserved better. As someone said, if such activity is not identified and punished, it may happen again. Like a supermarket correcting sacking an employee for stealing and eating a mars bar, if the line was crossed, the line was crossed.  

If the borrower engaged in fraud in obtaining the loan then she cannot get a PIA. She has indicated she thinks it would be no harm to know before entering in to a PIA who was involved in having the loan report or valuation altered, or if there was fraud involved, rather than possibly 4 years in to a PIA. Anyway, she is due another meeting soon, let her ask or clarify those questions.


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## Leo (3 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> a banker added over 60k on to her salary on internal loan reports so he could mislead his superiors / sell the mortgage / have the nurse borrow maybe 12 or 15 times her salary and have her life changed for the worse as a result,



So your friend actually wanted a nice small affordable mortgage, to buy a house within her means but a greedy mortgage broker put a gun to her head and forced to to borrow far more than she wanted to, and to buy a more expensive house than she intended? 

Your sole focus here seems to be directed at seeking a witch hunt to out and punish the individuals involved. That will get you or your friend nowhere. Manipulation of data on these forms at one level or another was common, indeed, it is still happening though perhaps to a lesser degree.


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## usernameinuse (3 May 2018)

Leo said:


> Manipulation of data



Do you think a banker adding over €60,000 on to a nurses salary on internal loan reports, a valuer getting basic facts wrong ( 5 bedroom instead of 3 bedroom, double glazed instead of all but one single glazed etc ) was just "manipulating data ", given the true data was very different ( the P60 and payslips supplied etc )? And you think its ok if "it is still happening,though perhaps to a lesser degree" as you claim?

If the borrower "was in on" any fraudulent activity or wrongdoing then a PIA would not be allowed. I think that is why she feels it would be best to know what happened before a PIA rather than possibly 4 years in to a PIA.  She would also like to know that what happened to her will not happen to anyone else. She has not married or had kids or even socialised much as a result of financial worries since taking out the loan, having had her data manipulated unknown to her over a decade ago. Why was the data manipulated? Why did her own bank, who refused her a loan for a much lesser amount, not manipulate data?


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## elcato (3 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Do you think a banker adding over €60,000 on to a nurses salary on internal loan reports, a valuer getting basic facts wrong ( 5 bedroom instead of 3 bedroom, double glazed instead of all but one single glazed etc ) was just "manipulating data ", given the true data was very different ( the P60 and payslips supplied etc )? And you think its ok if "it is still happening,though perhaps to a lesser degree" as you claim?


Yawn. You keep repeating the same garbage instead of actually listening but maybe someone will give you a hug eventually.


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## usernameinuse (3 May 2018)

elcato said:


> You keep repeating the same garbage ..



No, actually I was just replying to the poster before that, who came up with the astonishing claim for the first time that "it is still happening though perhaps to a lesser degree". If you or he have insider knowledge of such practice, I suggest you report it to the relevant authorities.


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## Leo (3 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Do you think a banker adding over €60,000 on to a nurses salary on internal loan reports, a valuer getting basic facts wrong ( 5 bedroom instead of 3 bedroom, double glazed instead of all but one single glazed etc ) was just "manipulating data "



Yes, that's manipulating the data, it was common. Non one will be surprised to hear that. Was your friend coerced into taking on a larger mortgage or buying a more expensive house than they initially intended?



usernameinuse said:


> I think that is why she feels it would be best to know what happened before a PIA rather than possibly 4 years in to a PIA.



I think it's clear to most who have tried to advise you here that the likelihood of your friend ever getting that level of detail is very close to zero. Even if a full investigation occurs into the internal practices of the bank and this broker, your friend will not be entitled to the findings.



usernameinuse said:


> She has not married or had kids or even socialised much as a result of financial worries since taking out the loan, having had her data manipulated unknown to her over a decade ago.



You mean she put her entire life on hold the day she took out the mortgage that she requested? Even the whole of the first 10 years when she was paying interest only? She didn't do any basic research or seek independent advice on all that time? 



usernameinuse said:


> Why was the data manipulated?



Quite simply, to give her what she asked for.



usernameinuse said:


> Why did her own bank, who refused her a loan for a much lesser amount, not manipulate data?



Why did your friend not question why another institution was offering her so much more than her own back was? Why did that not sound alarm bells? What questions did she ask or did she just bury her head in the sand, grab the money and run?


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## usernameinuse (3 May 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> the credit approval process in most banks is pretty rigorous, involving several sign offs at different levels and the credit risk officers are very experienced.  So the idea that someone could add 60K to a nurse's salary and that it would go unquestioned over several reviews, seems highly unlikely.



Most people would agree with you, it was highly unusual. However, according to Leo, it was "common".


Leo said:


> Yes, that's manipulating the data, it was common.



Come off it Leo! That scale of fraud or wrongdoing was not common.



Leo said:


> You mean she put her entire life on hold the day she took out the mortgage that she requested? Even the whole of the first 10 years when she was paying interest only?


She paid quite a lot in variable interest rates in those 10 years. She also knew if she sold the house it was not worth a fraction of what the valuer would had valued it at, and was dismayed many years later to see he had got even basic details factually incorrect.



Leo said:


> Quite simply, to give her what she asked for.


She did not ask for the data to be fraudulently changed or "manipulated" as you call it. In fact she had no knowledge of that until she saw her file many years after taking out the loan.



Leo said:


> What questions did she ask or did she just bury her head in the sand, grab the money and run?


She asked what the interest and capital repayments would be, and was not told, just that the bank were the mortgage experts and had decades of experience and she could afford it, or she could roll over the 10 year interest free period for another 10 years at the end of the first 10 year period. Perhaps the only people who grabbed the money and ran were the banker and his relation the valuer, who misled people higher up in the bank, and the bank shareholders? They have since resigned or no longer work for the bank.


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## Leo (3 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> She asked what the interest and capital repayments would be, and was not told,



Of course she wasn't. The broker had no way of knowing what interest rates would be in 10 years. This question has been answered multiple times already.

But you still maintain she put her life on hold for the 10 year duration while she was paying interest only. Did she expect payments would go down?


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## usernameinuse (3 May 2018)

Leo said:


> Of course she wasn't. The broker had no way of knowing what interest rates would be in 10 years.



Of course not, but the banker did not indicate what monthly capital and interest repayments would be if interest rates were, for example 4%, or 6% or 8%.  No indication of what they could be or were likely to be at all. Rolling over the 10 year interest only period was mentioned as a possibility by the banker though. I believe not all banks operated like this, certainly mine did not when I took out a mortgage.


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## dub_nerd (4 May 2018)

This is beyond ridiculous. You want the bank to do financial modelling for customers? They might apply a stress test (but not back in 2007). As I mentioned before, on an interest-only loan it's not rocket science to calculate 4%, 6% or 8% of the total. It's basic multiplication. If the customer isn't able to figure it out for themselves they're probably in trouble from the get go. Though I notice they can do their two-times tables because they know they were given twice as much as another bank was prepared to lend. If they did nothing with that information, what do you think they would have done with the financial models you're imagining they should have got?


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## usernameinuse (4 May 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> You want the bank to do financial modelling for customers? They might apply a stress test


Not financial modelling but just a basic calculation,for themselves if not for the customer, to see what monthly capital and interest repayments would be. If they done that, they would have seen that the nurse could not afford the loan, not by a long shot. The borrower paid a sizeable deposit, and the best part of a few hundred thousand in interest only. Of course the bank should see if the borrower can afford the mortgage. 

Was talking to a relation recently who is a banker, he said he never saw in his bank loan reports showing borrowers salary inflated by over €60,000, compared to P60, payslips etc. Or a valuation with such basic facts untrue. So it did not happen in all banks.  

What is the difference between a bank employee who defrauds his superiors (and the bank shareholders) by a misleading loan report or valuation, for personal gain (commission, bonus, promotion or whatever) and a supermarket shop employee who steals a single bar of chocolate while working, from his employer? The shop employee gets sacked, as has happened.


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## Leo (4 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Of course the bank should see if the borrower can afford the mortgage.



The borrower has the greater responsibility in determining whether they can afford it. It's not the bank's responsibility 

You still haven't answered why your friend seems to have put her life on hold as soon as she took out the mortgage, despite being on a 10 year interest only rate. This suggests she was well aware she could not afford the mortgage from day 1.




usernameinuse said:


> What is the difference between a bank employee who defrauds his superiors (and the bank shareholders) by a misleading loan report or valuation, for personal gain (commission, bonus, promotion or whatever) and a supermarket shop employee who steals a single bar of chocolate while working, from his employer?



There are a number differences between these two scenarios, but a key similarity in the context of this thread is that in both cases, a customer has no rights whatsoever to any details from the internal disciplinary procedures.

In your friend's bank example, they got the loan they requested at the rate advertised. In the shop's case, if the theft was ongoing and of significant proportions, then customers may have been paying slightly more for goods to offset the shop's losses, but they still had all the pricing information to hand prior to making a decision to purchase.


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## LDFerguson (4 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> What is the difference between a bank employee who defrauds his superiors (and the bank shareholders) by a misleading loan report or valuation, for personal gain (commission, bonus, promotion or whatever) and a supermarket shop employee who steals a single bar of chocolate while working, from his employer? The shop employee gets sacked, as has happened.



That's not a valid comparison.  If you want to talk in parables, try this one: - 

Liam walks into a Mercedes showroom and sees a lovely recent-model S-class for sale for €100,000.  Liam works in his local supermarket and earns about €30,000 per year.  "No problem" says the car salesman to his finance guy.  "Sure we'll write it up that Liam's on a salary of €100,000 and we'll give him a discount on the first year repayments on the car finance agreement so that the repayments in the first year will be affordable."  Liam drives away in his lovely Merc.


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## Leo (4 May 2018)

And.... Liam knows he is getting a deeply discounted rate, and can barely afford that!


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## usernameinuse (4 May 2018)

Leo said:


> It's not the bank's responsibility


Why then for example do banks advertise otherwise eg what they look for, and I quote from them "is proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future."?



Leo said:


> You still haven't answered why your friend seems to have put her life on hold as soon as she took out the mortgage, despite being on a 10 year interest only rate. This suggests she was well aware she could not afford the mortgage from day 1.


She could afford the interest only from day one, and did pay it from day 1.  However as I said she has not married or had kids or even socialised much in the past 11 years. You say that is the same as putting her life on hold. Other would say she has a track record of acting responsibly, to the best of her ability, given finance was not her area of expertise. However the banker must have know she could not afford the capital and interest repayments, they said they were the experts and she could afford the repayments. And possibly roll over for another 10 years interest only.




LDFerguson said:


> That's not a valid comparison.


It is a valid comparison, because in both cases the employee defrauded his or her employer.

In the banks case, the banker misled or defrauded those further up the bank, and the shareholders, by having a false loan report / valuation, for his selfish gain (promotion, bonus, commission or whatever). The victim was the bank, the shareholder, the borrower...they all paid.

In Tesco's case, the hungry employee who stole the bar of chocolate and was sacked also misled or defrauded his employer, for his selfish gain. Albeit for a much lesser amount. He was still sacked though.



LDFerguson said:


> If you want to talk in parables, try this one: -
> 
> Liam walks into a Mercedes showroom and sees a lovely recent-model S-class for sale for €100,000.  Liam works in his local supermarket and earns about €30,000 per year.  "No problem" says the car salesman to his finance guy.  "Sure we'll write it up that Liam's on a salary of €100,000 and we'll give him a discount on the first year repayments on the car finance agreement so that the repayments in the first year will be affordable."  Liam drives away in his lovely Merc.


The finance guy would not last long in that job, if he took the borrowers payslips / P60, added 60k to his salary unknown to the borrower, and misled the finance company the security was much better than it really was ( a 5 litre engine instead of 3 litre, different spec etc) having had his relation a motor assessor describe and value the car.



Leo said:


> And.... Liam knows he is getting a deeply discounted rate, and can barely afford that!


You are trying to fudge the waters again. The borrower for the house did not get a deeply discounted rate, unlike some bank employees, it was variable rate.


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## usernameinuse (4 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Why then for example do banks advertise otherwise eg what they look for, and I quote from them "is proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future."?
> 
> 
> She could afford the interest only from day one, and did pay it from day 1.  However as I said she has not married or had kids or even socialised much in the past 11 years. You say that is the same as putting her life on hold. Other would say she has a track record of acting responsibly, to the best of her ability, given finance was not her area of expertise. However the banker must have know she could not afford the capital and interest repayments, they said they were the experts and she could afford the repayments. And possibly roll over for another 10 years interest only.
> ...


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## LDFerguson (4 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> She could afford the interest only from day one, and did pay it from day 1.  However as I said she has not married or had kids or even socialised much in the past 11 years. You say that is the same as putting her life on hold.



So are you saying that she accepted an offer of a loan where the repayments on an interest-only basis were such that she could not afford to get married, have kids or socialise much?  




usernameinuse said:


> It is a valid comparison, because in both cases the employee defrauded his or her employer.



It's at best only partially valid as it only compares the aspect of this story in which the employee acts dishonestly for his own gain.  It is not valid in that it makes no reference to any customer of the shop applying for a loan and accepting the offer of a loan.


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## Buddyboy (4 May 2018)

6 pages of leading a horse to water. 
I've given up reading at this stage.


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## usernameinuse (4 May 2018)

LDFerguson said:


> So are you saying that she accepted an offer of a loan where the repayments on an interest-only basis were such that she could not afford to get married, have kids or socialise much?


In the downturn her take home pay was reduced, and the value of the house dropped considerably. It dawned on her the bankers reassurances were incorrect, even though he was the mortgage expert who said he examined her figures, with decades of experience. When years later she obtained the file from the bank, showing the incorrect loan report and valuation, she saw a clearer picture.




LDFerguson said:


> It's at best only partially valid as it only compares the aspect of this story in which the employee acts dishonestly for his own gain.


So the employees actions were comparable and equally valid, the only difference being the scale?
(the banker who misled or defrauded those further up the bank, and the shareholders, by having a false loan report / valuation, for his selfish gain, and the hungry supermarket employee who also misled or defrauded his employer by stealing the bar of chocolate and was sacked).


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## LDFerguson (4 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> In the downturn her take home pay was reduced, and the value of the house dropped considerably. It dawned on her the bankers reassurances were incorrect, even though he was the mortgage expert who said he examined her figures, with decades of experience. When years later she obtained the file from the bank, showing the incorrect loan report and valuation, she saw a clearer picture.



She also saw a clear picture of the monthly repayments before she chose to accept the offer of a loan because they were written on the formal loan offer, which she signed before she got the loan.  Her loan offer also made it clear that it was an interest-only loan.  



usernameinuse said:


> So the employees actions were comparable and equally valid, the only difference being the scale?
> (the banker who misled or defrauded those further up the bank, and the shareholders, by having a false loan report / valuation, for his selfish gain, and the hungry supermarket employee who also misled or defrauded his employer by stealing the bar of chocolate and was sacked).



That's correct.  As I said, the comparison is only partially valid.  The part where the employee acts dishonestly and works against his employer.  But that comparison completely misses the part where the customer applies for a loan, gets offered a loan and takes the loan.


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## Leo (4 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Why then for example do banks advertise otherwise eg what they look for, and I quote from them "is proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future."?



Perhaps this is the core of what you are struggling with. The banks do this in order to protect their own interests, not the borrower's. The borrower has a personal responsibility in this and every financial and other transaction they enter into. 



usernameinuse said:


> It is a valid comparison, because in both cases the employee defrauded his or her employer.



The bank weren't defrauded, they gave out a loan, 10+ years on it's still performing earning them interest, and the still have the asset as security. There is currently no loss recorded on their books in relation to this loan.


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## usernameinuse (4 May 2018)

LDFerguson said:


> She also saw a clear picture of the monthly repayments before she chose to accept the offer of a loan because they were written on the formal loan offer, which she signed before she got the loan.


Untrue, you did not read all the previous posts. The borrower was never informed of what her monthly capital and interest repayments would be until many many years in to the loan. 




Leo said:


> The banks do this in order to protect their own interests, not the borrower's.


 First you said its not the banks responsibility. When I point out it is, you say
the banks do this, look for ability to repay mortgage long term, in order to protect their own interests, not the borrower's.  They obviously did not "do this" in this case because the borrower cannot repay capital and interest repayments, not by a long shot.



Leo said:


> The bank weren't defrauded, they gave out a loan, 10+ years on it's still performing...


The borrower is unable to repay capital and interest, it is more than her nurses salary. So it is not performing. And yes the banker defrauded those higher up in the bank if he got P60, payslips etc and misled those higher up in the bank by adding over 60k to the nurses salary on the loan report, as well as submitting the false valuation etc. The bank is at a loss as it will not recover the full amount it lent as a result of the bankers actions. The shareholder is at a loss as a result of wrongdoing in banks too. The borrower lost her sizeable deposit and almost a few hundred thousand in interest.
The actions of a rogue banker, who is in a position of trust and who assures his client that they are the mortgage experts, can be a lot more serious than a rogue hungry shop employee who defrauded his employer of a bar of chocolate, and who was sacked as a result.


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## Leo (4 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> First you said its not the banks responsibility. When I point out it is, you say
> the banks do this, look for ability to repay mortgage long term, in order to protect their own interests, not the borrower's.  They obviously did not "do this" in this case because the borrower cannot repay capital and interest repayments, not by a long shot.



You're still caught up with trying to pin blame on the bank for giving your friend the mortgage she asked for.

Fundamentally, they should never have asked for a mortgage they could not afford, or bought a house beyond their means. There is no recourse for such poor decision making.


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## LDFerguson (4 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Untrue, you did not read all the previous posts. The borrower was never informed of what her monthly capital and interest repayments would be until many many years in to the loan.



She was told what the interest-only repayments are and, while I admit I haven't read all six pages of this, my understanding is that she's been paying interest-only for the past 11 years.  So when she accepted the loan, she knew what her repayments would be.  



usernameinuse said:


> The borrower lost her sizeable deposit and almost a few hundred thousand in interest.



How did she "lose" her deposit?  Because the value of the property went down?  The value of ALL properties in Ireland went down at the same time. 

She didn't "lose" hundreds of thousands in interest either.  She paid the interest on the loan as per the agreement she signed up to.  She also got to live in the house for the past eleven years.  How on earth can you claim that she "lost" the interest?


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## usernameinuse (4 May 2018)

Leo said:


> Fundamentally, they should never have asked for a mortgage they could not afford, or bought a house beyond their means. There is no recourse for such poor decision making.



You are ignoring the actions of the banker, not surprisingly. However if we focus on the borrower, she was assured by the mortgage experts she could afford it. If she was allowed roll over the 10 year interest only period, as she was led to believe she could, she would not be in arrears now. If she was on the salary the banker told his superiors she was on in the loan report, then she could afford it.  Sure the borrower should take some pain (she lost a sizable deposit and paid almost 200k in interest so far) but she would not be in this position but for the wrongdoing of the rogue banker and his relation the valuer, both now resigned or left the bank.

To use an analogy, suppose homeless Liam walked in to a Mercedes showroom and saw a good condition secondhand Mercedes for €100,000. Would a banker try to get commission on the sale of a loan by increasing his income details by over €60,000 and changing the documentation of the type and specification of car so it could lend him €100,000 ?



LDFerguson said:


> She was told what the interest-only repayments are and, while I admit I haven't read all six pages of this, my understanding is that she's been paying interest-only for the past 11 years.  So when she accepted the loan, she knew what her repayments would be.



She was told what her interest only repayment would be.  She was never told what the capital and interest repayments would be, or her repayments after the 10 year interest only period, only that she could roll over the interest only period for another 10 years.



LDFerguson said:


> How did she "lose" her deposit?



Because she paid that money (the sizeable deposit on the house), plus the best part of €200,000 in interest, and the bank wants her to surrender the property soon.

The banks advertise that they look for "proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future.".  They did not do that in this case and the file (obtained under the data act) shows that the banker misled his superiors about the borrowers repayment ability and the valuation of the property. No excuse for that, given the borrower furnished the bank with proof of income ie P60, payslips etc.

Nobody can excuse a fraudulent act by a bank employee by saying "everyone was at it" just as you cannot excuse a supermarket employee who stole a bar of chocolate by claiming everyone working in the supermarket was helping themselves to the odd snack too.


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## LDFerguson (5 May 2018)

She paid a deposit on a property.  She took an interest-only loan.  The value of the property went down.  How many people in Ireland who bought property at the same time were faced with the same situation?  Are you saying that the drop in property value wiping out her deposit is the fault of her bank also?  

Regarding the interest, she applied for a loan, she was accepted for the loan, she took the loan.  She paid interest on the loan she took.  She also got to live in the house for the past 10 or 11 years.  She had to live somewhere and that generally costs money.  So she didn't "lose" €200,000 in interest.  She paid what she owed.  

By the way, I repeat what I said in my earlier posts on this thread.  If what you say is true about the bank employee lying to his colleagues to get her approved for a larger loan than the bank's criteria would have allowed, then I'm not condoning this at all.  That's simply wrong.


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## Bronte (6 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> 'Tis far from dissing the peasants I am. You are the one who wrote "She didn't bother to ask the nearest person capable of using a website to bang the numbers into a mortgage calculator."  In December 2006 Ireland had only 430,000 broadband subscribers, and those were mostly subscribers in cities like Dublin.  With respect, I do not think you understood rural Ireland in 2007, dub_nerd, if you think most people then knew what a mortgage calcalutor was never mind had broadband. Sure the mortgage experts should have had mortgage calculators then, but I'd suggest most other people had not broadband never mind had a mortgage calculator, or ever used a mortgage calculator.




Did she have the back of an envelope and a biro? I’m amazed she qualified as a nurse. She never had a credit card?  Didn't understand mortgages, didn’t understand borrowing. Managed to borrow 400,000 on a three bed house in rural Ireland that seems to have cost 600,000 with monthly repayments of 1,800 on a salary of 30,000.

Have I got those figures right?

How did she manage to find a house at all. That’s a mystery to me. What possessed her to be looking at houses in a price range that most people wouldn’t dream of looking at.


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## Bronte (6 May 2018)

It gets worse. She purchased a very expensive property in rural Ireland. It has no double glazing. A very bad roof and an old boiler. She could just afford the interest only. She is single and thought a three bedroom house in that condition was a good idea. Why did she purchase that house?

Especially as just the interest only took all her disposable income.

Something not adding up here. Always is when the poster is not revealing any figures.


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## Black Sheep (6 May 2018)

And it gets even worse. Surely this lady (who was not money savvy) had some friends/family whom she discussed her purchase with. 
As a nurse she probably had many colleagues in similar situations. Back then, as now, house purchase was a daily topic of conversation and almost impossible to avoid. Even those of us who had no intention of purchasing property got caught up in those conversations.

This story baffles me.


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## usernameinuse (7 May 2018)

Bronte said:


> She never had a credit card?


What makes you think that? What relevance is it to the banker lending money he knows the borrower can never pay back?  Or a bank which does not tell the borrower what capital and interest repayments will be?  Times have changed, I think they always do nowadays.



Bronte said:


> Have I got those figures right?


No, but the exact figures are not relevant anyway. Of course many people overpaid for property during the credit bubble 11 years and more ago.  Fraudulent activity did not happen in all banks though.  As said earlier, I was talking to a relation recently who is a banker, he said he never saw in his bank loan reports showing borrowers salary inflated by over €60,000, compared to P60, payslips etc. Or a valuation with such basic facts untrue. 



LDFerguson said:


> If what you say is true about the bank employee lying to his colleagues to get her approved for a larger loan than the bank's criteria would have allowed, then I'm not condoning this at all.  That's simply wrong.



It is more than just wrong. As asked before, what is the difference between a bank employee who while working defrauds his superiors (and the bank shareholders) by a misleading loan report or valuation, for personal gain (commission, bonus, promotion or whatever) *and* a supermarket shop employee who steals a single bar of chocolate while working, for personal gain, from his employer? The supermarket employee got fired, even though the sum involved was very small, say a euro.


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## Clamball (7 May 2018)

Yes, something does not add up here at all.  There is this woman purchasing a house in the west, for about €550000.  With an interest rate of say 4% that is €1833 per month, she is paying in interest only.  That is an very big loan to service and pay off, but she is on interest only and off she goes. 

Now of course after the ten years she had signed up to pay interest and capital.   She still owes every penny of the €550,000.  Over what term did she sign up to pay off the loan?  Let’s be generous and say 30 years, because say she was 25 getting the loan and it will be all paid off by the time she is 65.   So that is only €1528 per month capital every month for 360 months.   Being simplistic she only has the back of the envelop and the biro, but at least she knows month 1 will be €3361.  

Unfortunately she cannot access a computer to look at a mortgage calculator.  (at 4% interest €2667 per month)

So here she is 10 years later and she has paid €220,000 in interest but not a penny off the capital.  She has borrowed €550,000 and not paid a penny back.   She only remembers this once a year when she gets a statement from the bank.  She has never heard of the banking crisis or the hundreds who lost their homes because they could not pay their mortgage since she is living up a hill in the back of beyond in the west.   So she is supremely relaxed when the bank asks her to pay off the capital.

Oh no, she has heard of the banking crisis, because she knows the banks were reckless, and doing bad things to the poor worker, so she blames the bank for her problems.  So she checks and the paperwork shows the bank estimated the ability to repay incorrectly, she in all her 10 years of sacrifice, of changing her lifestyle to service this loan never gave it a moments thought, how she was going to repay the loan.  It does not ring true, she should have contacted the bank years ago to begin paying off the capital, or sold the house to lessen her losses. 

I am sorry I do not have sympathy for this lady but she had multiple opportunities before this to figure out she could never pay back the loan and she should have acted then.


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## RETIRED2017 (7 May 2018)

Out of Interest did she buy house off family member a 3 bedroom house in the condition stated appears to be over priced for 11 years ago or did she take out a loan to buy off other family members,
Someone did well out of transaction the problem is she over paid even allowing for the prices of houses 11 years ago you/ she cannot blame the Banks for buying a pig in a poke which she could never afford to re pay off unless she is expecting a windfall later in life,


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## dub_nerd (7 May 2018)

Clamball said:


> I am sorry I do not have sympathy for this lady but she had multiple opportunities before this to figure out she could never pay back the loan and she should have acted then.


Not to mention that another bank turned her down for half the amount she eventually borrowed. The OP is claiming that the "mortgage experts" misled her, but skips over the bit where a different set of "mortgage experts" told her she was nuts and she went ahead anyway.


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## usernameinuse (7 May 2018)

Clamball said:


> There is this woman purchasing a house in the west, for about €550000.





RETIRED2017 said:


> Out of Interest did she buy house off family member a 3 bedroom house in the condition stated appears to be over priced for 11 years ago


No, it was not off a family member or friend. Not her family member anyway. 11 years ago, houses in nice scenic areas were often in the ball park of €400,000, 500,000 or Clamballs guess of 550k.



RETIRED2017 said:


> Someone did well out of transaction the problem is she over paid even allowing for the prices of houses 11 years ago you


The people who done well out of the transaction were the banker and his cousin the valuer: they would not have got their commission if they submitted correct facts and figures.



Clamball said:


> So here she is 10 years later and she has paid €220,000 in interest but not a penny off the capital.


  Almost €200,000 in interest. When taking out the loan the banker said her salary would be much higher in 10 years time and also she could always roll over for another 10 year interest only period.
Why did the banker assure her she could afford the loan? Why do the banks say they look for, and I quote from them "proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future."?




Clamball said:


> She only remembers this once a year when she gets a statement from the bank.  She has never heard of the banking crisis


She remembers it very often, not just once a year. Of course she heard of the banking crisis. Her salary and take home pay was reduced as a result of bank mismanagement. She has not married or had kids or gone out much as a result of financial worries.



Clamball said:


> It does not ring true, she should have contacted the bank years ago to begin paying off the capital, or sold the house to lessen her losses.


She had not the money to pay off the capital years ago. Because the house more than halved in value during the crises, then was not the time to sell. Even now it is worth a lot less than she paid for it at the top of the bubble. Shortfall of maybe €180,000.  Maybe if it was a 5 bedroom with double glazing it would be worth more?



dub_nerd said:


> The OP is claiming that the "mortgage experts" misled her, but skips over the bit where a different set of "mortgage experts" told her she was nuts and she went ahead anyway.


I said her own bank refused her the money. The banker who did lend the money only could do so because he mislead his superiors about her salary in the loan report ( by over €60,000 ) and because the valuer lied about the quality of the security (5 bedroom instead of 3 bedroom, double glazing instead of all but one single glazed etc). 

The banker and valuer no longer work for the bank, but do you think punishment is needed, just as a shop employee who stole a €1 bar of chocolate from his employer was severely punished?


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## PaddyBloggit (7 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> I said her own bank refused her the money.



She was a willing participant in the scheme. She knew from her own bank that she couldn't afford the loan but took it out elsewhere when it worked in her favour... unless she's a complete idiot, she knew that the figures had been twisted to nake her eligible for the loan.

She's guilty by omission, ignorance or just plain stupidity. It's gone belly up now so she trying to justify her position by blaming the fault she was complicit with first day.


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## usernameinuse (7 May 2018)

PaddyBloggit said:


> She was a willing participant in the scheme.


She did not know of the fraudulent bank scheme until many years after she took out the loan, when she obtained her file after paying €6.35



PaddyBloggit said:


> She knew from her own bank that she couldn't afford the loan


Her bank would not lend her the money. Who she did borrow of assured her they had examined her figures after she gave them her P60, payslips etc.  That bank said she could afford the loan.
Some house buyers got interest only loans then, just as some car buyers now effectively get car loans (pcp?) to fund the use of a car, they will never own the car outright.  At the end of 3 years they have to roll over again or whatever.



PaddyBloggit said:


> unless she's a complete idiot, she knew that the figures had been twisted to nake her eligible for the loan.


As said before, she did not know of the fraudulent bank scheme until many years later.
She also did not know what loan criteria the banks used in 2007. I think few people did. Nowadays I think banks cannot lend borrowers say 10 or 15 times salary. Why do you think that is?

Will you answer the question, do you think punishment is needed for employees who may do wrongdoing or mislead their superiors about large sums of money or figures, just as a shop employee who stole a €1 bar of chocolate from his employer was severely punished?


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## Monbretia (7 May 2018)

The valuer probably got €120 for the valuation, that was the going rate, hardly a massive return for a 'fraud', there wouldn't have been commission payable to the valuer and in fact probably not to the banker either, I never heard of them being paid commission unless you mean a broker.

Banker may have been trying to reach lending targets to reach a bonus or similar, that would be only return to them.


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## dub_nerd (7 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> When taking out the loan the banker said her salary would be much higher in 10 years time and also she could always roll over for another 10 year interest only period.


So now these so-called "mortgage experts" are also experts on the level of nurses' salaries in the far future? He couldn't possibly have known that and if she had an ounce of common sense she must have _known_ he couldn't have known that. Also, she knew the level of interest repayments from day one, so she knew she was going to spend 200 grand on interest payments in the first ten years. That's nothing to do with being misled, nothing to do with the fall in property prices, nothing to do with the recession. _That is what she voluntarily signed up for_. And you're telling us that she actually took comfort from being told she could roll this over and spend _another_ 200k, and still not have paid a penny off the loan or owned a single one of those single-glazed window panes. What is she, some kind of eejit? When did she think she was going to repay the loan? Even ignoring what she was told, and whether she was misled on certain issues, she had enough information right there in front of her before she put pen to contract to be easily able to tell that this was a crazy, crazy decision from day one. Do you accept that?


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## Sarenco (7 May 2018)

Like practically every other poster on this thread, I have zero sympathy for this lady.

She took out an imprudent loan and now wants to blame the bank for her difficulties.

Whether or not the bank takes any action against its employee is solely a matter for the bank.  It has absolutely nothing to do with the borrower.

The courts have repeatedly made it crystal clear that reckless lending is no defence to an action for enforcement of a loan.


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## LDFerguson (7 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> It is more than just wrong. As asked before, what is the difference between a bank employee who while working defrauds his superiors (and the bank shareholders) by a misleading loan report or valuation, for personal gain (commission, bonus, promotion or whatever) *and* a supermarket shop employee who steals a single bar of chocolate while working, for personal gain, from his employer? The supermarket employee got fired, even though the sum involved was very small, say a euro.



And I've answered this before.  But seeing as you've asked it again, I'll answer it again.  It's not a valid comparison in this case.  It's at best only partially valid as it only compares the aspect of this story in which the employee acts dishonestly for his own gain. It is not valid in that it makes no reference to any customer of the shop applying for a loan and accepting the offer of a loan.


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## usernameinuse (7 May 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> So now these so-called "mortgage experts" are also experts on the level of nurses' salaries in the far future?



The banker assured the borrower, when he would not tell her what the capital and interest repayments would be, that she could afford them,  had not nurses salaries increased so much in the previous 10 years ( 1997 - 2007 ) and anyway in 10 years she could roll over for another interest only period. Inflation would eat away at the loan amount, he said. The bank were mortgage experts and had decades of experience.



Monbretia said:


> The valuer probably got €120 for the valuation,


He actually got paid a bit more than that.  And why did the banker pick a relation of his as the valuer?  Why did the valuer get even basic facts incorrect on his valuation?
The file also shows the bank broke s125 (I think it was) by not giving a copy of the valuation to the borrower at the time of the loan. She only saw it many years later when she requested her file.



LDFerguson said:


> It is not valid in that it makes no reference to any customer of the shop applying for a loan and accepting the offer of a loan.


Fraud can be fraud without making reference to the method by which the fraud was carried out.
An employee of a business (a bank) who misleads / defrauds his superior by adding over 60,000 to the borrowers salary, for his own benefit in getting bonus, promotion or whatever, ends up costing his employer the bank a six figure sum when the property is eventually sold etc. The bankers actions had knock on effects for the borrower too, as if he did not believe fraudulently then the loan would not have been made.
The employee of a supermarket who steals a euro bar of chocolate, for his own benefit,  and who misleads and defrauds his employers over same, ends up getting sacked.  There is zero tolerance for wrongdoing and costing the employer money. And rightfully so.



Jim2007 said:


> Out of interest, how would it be if the Nurse in question gave you incorrect information regarding medication or treatment for say your 6 year old Child or your 80 year old Mother and it caused them serious harm.  Would the nurse be to blame or would it be your fault for being stupid in acting on her expert advice?


Clearly according to the bankers it would be the patients fault entirely 




Jim2007 said:


> the credit approval process in most banks is pretty rigorous, involving several sign offs at different levels and the credit risk officers are very experienced.  So the idea that someone could add 60K to a nurse's salary and that it would go unquestioned over several reviews, seems highly unlikely.


And if the file shows it happened, and if the file also contained the nurses proof of earnings (copy of P60, payslips etc), then surely that is clear evidence of criminal wrongdoing? Given the bank will not explain how it happened?



newtothis said:


> my suggestion would be to report this to the regulator (the Central Bank)



As said before, the Central Bank will not investigate individual complaints, but contacting the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau has been suggested.


----------



## Sarenco (7 May 2018)

The bank was not acting in a fiduciary capacity in advancing the loan.  Put simply, the bank was entitled to act in their own interests - not necessarily in the best interests of your friend.  It's bizarre that you don't understand this at this stage.

Again, if the bank has a problem with their ex-employee or their valuer then they can pursue them as they see fit.  They can even report them to the Gardai if they want.

But it has absolutely nothing to do with your friend and the bank is under no obligation to explain anything to your friend about their underwriting process.

It doesn't matter if the bank was reckless in making the loan.  It doesn't even matter if the loan was only advanced to your friend because of fraudulent misrepresentations on the part of a bank employee or the bank's valuer.

She is still liable to repay the loan she obtained from the bank and if she can't afford to do so she will have to accept the consequences.

That's the reality.  Ranting about the conduct of an individual bank employee or valuer will get you absolutely nowhere - it's a complete waste of time and energy.


----------



## dub_nerd (7 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> The banker assured the borrower, when he would not tell her what the capital and interest repayments would be, that she could afford them,  had not nurses salaries increased so much in the previous 10 years ( 1997 - 2007 ) and anyway in 10 years she could roll over for another interest only period. Inflation would eat away at the loan amount, he said. The bank were mortgage experts and had decades of experience.



So to summarise my points again, which you ignored:

Your friend believed that bankers can mystically see a decade into the future to predict salaries, interest rates and inflation.
She knew the interest repayments _before_ signing, and that she would spend 200k on them in the first ten years.
She wanted to be able to roll over the loan and spend _another_ 200k, and still own nothing

The repayments had nothing to do with being misled, nothing to do with the fall in property prices, nothing to do with the recession.
She never did anything over the ten years when salaries and inflation did not match expectations.


----------



## usernameinuse (7 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> The bank was not acting in a fiduciary capacity in advancing the loan.  Put simply, the bank was entitled to act in their own interests - not necessarily in the best interests of your friend.



But the bank did not act in its own interest. The bank will be at a considerable loss.  The value of the property is much less than the loan amount. Neither did it act in the interests of the borrower, who they must have known could never repay the loan.
The banks advertise that they look for "proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future.". They did not do that in this case.



Sarenco said:


> if the bank has a problem with their ex-employee or their valuer then they can pursue them as they see fit.  They can even report them to the Gardai if they want.
> 
> But it has absolutely nothing to do with your friend and the bank is under no obligation to explain anything to your friend about their underwriting process.


If they had nothing to hide perhaps they can explain why the bank made out a fraudulent loan report concerning the borrower; why the valuer they appointed, a relation of the banker made out a false valuation, which was not given to the borrower like it should have been etc?
Given the bank will not explain how it happened, and there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the file, is it time to alert the GNECB?




dub_nerd said:


> So to summarise my points again, which you ignored:
> 
> Your friend believed that bankers can mystically see a decade into the future to predict salaries, interest rates and inflation.


Actually I did not ignore them, but here are answers again in any case.  My friend did not believe that bankers could mystically see in to the future to predict salaries, interest rates etc. The banker would and could not say what interest rates would be in 1, 2, 5 or ten years. That was the excuse he used for not telling the borrower what her capital and interest repayments would be. As said already, the banker assured the borrower, when he would not tell her what the capital and interest repayments would be, that she could afford them, had not nurses salaries increased so much in the previous 10 years ( 1997 - 2007 ) and anyway in 10 years she could roll over for another interest only period. Inflation would eat away at the loan amount, he said. The bank described themselves, and advertise themselves as mortgage experts with decades of experience.




dub_nerd said:


> [*]She knew the interest repayments _before_ signing, and that she would spend 200k on them in the first ten years.



No she did not, she was on variable rates and accepted the experts opinion that rates would fall. She did not know she would spend almost 200K on them in 10 years.




dub_nerd said:


> [*]She wanted to be able to roll over the loan and spend _another_ 200k, and still own nothing
> 
> [*]



If the bank had put her on a tracker she would not have spent almost 200k.  The banker said she could roll over the interest only period.




dub_nerd said:


> [*]The repayments had nothing to do with being misled, nothing to do with the fall in property prices, nothing to do with the recession.



She was not even told what her mortgage repayments would be (capital and interest) before she took out the mortgage. The file shows that. Would not such activity on the part of the bank be not allowed nowadays?



dub_nerd said:


> never did anything over the ten years when salaries and inflation did not match expectations.


She made changes to her lifestyle, never married or had kids or socialised much, due to financial worries. She "never did anything" says you!  She kept working.  She maintained the property and she paid almost 200k in interest. What more do you want her to do?

Now dub nerd I have answered your questions, perhaps you can answer one of mine, asked earlier. Do you think punishment is needed (for the banker and his relation, the valuer he appointed), just as a shop employee who stole a €1 bar of chocolate from his employer was severely punished?

Do you think the banker could have added over 60k to the nurses salary on the loan report by mistake?  Not very likely, given the nurse supplied P60, payslips etc?  And over 60k would be a huge increase on a nurses salary anyway surely?

If the bank deliberately falsifies information, why do they give the pretence that they will "look at your repayment capacity", as they advertise? They advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) "will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."


----------



## Suebee (7 May 2018)

This thread is painful! It' the same rant over and over and not listening to anyones  advice! 
I'e heard of people being confused by finances but this clearly takes the biscuit. In my opinion either this nurse new full well she was borrowing well above her means and just ran with it or she is that stupid I would question how she ever managed to qualify! Bottom line she signed,she's  paid 10 years she can't afford to ever pay the capital so its' time to surrender the property. 

As for the bankers of course it shouldn't have happened but she also shouldn't have been so naieve  as to take the loan! 

As for the banker saying her salary would increase he probably also thought a young woman would get married and have an additional income to help pay the capital after 10 years. Maybe she looked in the same crystal ball and thought she would be married and have a partner to contribute too .. . Who knows? I mean she surely must of considered how she would pay interest and capital at some point!


----------



## Sarenco (7 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> But the bank did not act in its own interest. The bank will be at a considerable loss.  The value of the property is much less than the loan amount.


That's the bank's problem.

Regardless, your friend would still have to meet her contractual obligations or suffer the consequences.

Surely you can see that?


usernameinuse said:


> Given the bank will not explain how it happened, and there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the file, is it time to alert the GNECB?


Again, the bank is under no obligation to explain anything to you or your friend.

Fire ahead if you want to make a complaint to the Gardai.

It will be of zero benefit to your friend.  She will owe the money to the bank regardless.


usernameinuse said:


> She made changes to her lifestyle, never married or had kids or socialised much, due to financial worries. She "never did anything" says you!  She kept working.  She maintained the property and she paid almost 200k in interest. What more do you want her to do?


How about she pays back the money she owes as per the loan contract that she signed?

Or if she can't perform her side of the bargain, then she should just accept the consequences.

It's really that simple.


----------



## usernameinuse (7 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> the bank is under no obligation to explain anything to you or your friend.


So the banker appoints his relation, the valuer to value the property. The banker charges the borrower for the valuation, and refuses to give the borrower a copy of the valuation, saying the bank is under no obligation to give a copy of the valuation, it is just for bank use only to make sure the property is as it is.
The bank did not comply with S125 there.

Then many years later the borrower obtains the valuation after paying €6.35 for the file. And the bank or valuer are "under no obligation" to explain why the valuation seems to be for a different property (5 bedroom instead of 3 bedroom, double glazed instead of all but one single glazed etc).


Sarenco, you claimed "The bank was not acting in a fiduciary capacity in advancing the loan. Put simply, the bank was entitled to act in their own interests".

I pointed out to you "the bank did not act in its own interest. The bank will be at a considerable loss. The value of the property is much less than the loan amount."

You then replied


Sarenco said:


> That's the bank's problem.



Not when the bank had to be bailed out due to its reckless lending : it then became the taxpayers problem. Can you not see that the actions of one or more employees in the bank, who mislead their superiors, has cost the bank dearly?  And the bank did not fulfill its promise it advertises that they look for "proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future.".

Sure the borrower has lost the sizeable deposit she paid on the house, the generous interest she paid the bank on the property (almost 200k) and is willing to surrender the property.
Being part of the caring profession, she cares more about others than herself at this stage though. The question is, what can she do to stop a selfish rogue banker or bankers not following bank rules and doing the same thing to others in future?


----------



## vandriver (7 May 2018)

The question is,where is she going to live.Anything else is irrelevant.


----------



## Clamball (7 May 2018)

If you think this retired banker and the vaulerer did something illegal then complain to the Gardai and see how far that goes.  

Buyer beware. 

Did the nurse seek independent financial advise before she took out the €550K loan?  If the banker would not answer her questions then why did she proceed?

In 2004 we did a house extension, using an online calculator we plugged in our salaries and it told us that we could borrow €500K, did we borrow it?  Not a chance, we looked at our ability to repay and decided no way.  I am sure if we wanted to let a bank salesman convince us that it was affordable it could have happened, but we had to make the final decisions ourselves, what were we comfortable borrowing.


----------



## usernameinuse (7 May 2018)

Clamball said:


> If you think this retired banker and the vaulerer did something illegal ..


Did they retire or were they sacked over similar fraudulent acts? 



Clamball said:


> In 2004 we did a house extension, using an online calculator we plugged in our salaries and it told us that we could borrow €500K, did we borrow it?  Not a chance, we looked at our ability to repay and decided no way.


Good for you, you were probably one of the few houses in Ireland in 2004 which had broadband and had heard of online mortgage calculators. Presumably the online calculator told you how much your monthly capital and interest repayments would be.  That is more than the bank told the nurse borrower.



Clamball said:


> Buyer beware.


Yes, buyer beware with that particular bank anyway.

The borrower can rent somewhere very cheap and will never own any property.  The banker should have foreseen that as they were the experts and were supposed to, according to their own publicity, look for _"proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future."   _As said before they advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) _"will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."_

The question is, what can she do to stop a selfish rogue banker or bankers not following bank rules, making fraudulent documentation within the bank and doing the same thing to others in future?


----------



## Sophrosyne (7 May 2018)

Look, it is really down to the purpose of your posts.

If it is to have the bank official and the valuer prosecuted, having read the various contributions from posters and your responses, I would have said do as you see fit and see how you get on.

However, it is not really _your_ decision is it? You won’t be the one taking action. One way or another you will have nothing to lose, except perhaps your friend.


----------



## dub_nerd (7 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> My friend did not believe that bankers could mystically see in to the future to predict salaries, interest rates etc. The banker would and could not say what interest rates would be in 1, 2, 5 or ten years. That was the excuse he used for not telling the borrower what her capital and interest repayments would be. As said already, the banker assured the borrower, when he would not tell her what the capital and interest repayments would be, that she could afford them...


So this is even sillier on your friend's part. The banker told her that he didn't know what future interest rates would be, yet he told her she could afford them? What gombeen would conclude anything other than he was having her on? You are compounding the view that your friend hadn't an ounce of common sense.



usernameinuse said:


> The bank described themselves, and advertise themselves as mortgage experts with decades of experience.


Nobody could be unaware that houses prices have gone down in the past and could again in the future. At the time your friend bought there had already been two major printed/documentary items that caused national furores over the prospect of an imminent price collapse.



usernameinuse said:


> If the bank had put her on a tracker she would not have spent almost 200k.


The bank was under no obligation to offer her a tracker, nor were trackers necessarily the best option at that particular time. If she was affected by the tracker debacle she would be entitled to redress and I presume she isn't. So this is a complete irrelevance.



usernameinuse said:


> The banker said she could roll over the interest only period.


And pay another 200k in interest? Why on earth would that be a good thing?



usernameinuse said:


> She was not even told what her mortgage repayments would be (capital and interest) before she took out the mortgage.


But they're not hard to work out, or to ask someone else to do it, and a six year old would understand that the repayments must go _up_ not _down_.



usernameinuse said:


> She maintained the property and she paid almost 200k in interest. What more do you want her to do?


It's her property. I would hope she'd maintain it. The bank just has a mortgage over it. She paid the interest she signed up to pay, in full knowledge. You make it sound like she was doing someone a favour. What the bank wants her to do is pay what she agreed.



usernameinuse said:


> Now dub nerd I have answered your questions, perhaps you can answer one of mine, asked earlier. Do you think punishment is needed (for the banker and his relation, te valuer he appointed), just as a shop employee who stole a €1 bar of chocolate from his employer was severely punished? Do you think the banker could have added over 60k to the nurses salary on the loan report by mistake?  Not very likely, given the nurse supplied P60, payslips etc?  And over 60k would be a huge increase on a nurses salary anyway surely?


No, I think your story about the banker is probably believable. I believe they conspired to give her a bigger mortgage than she should even have got. Yes, I'd love to see them punished and everyone else who stoked the bubble. Your friend was part of that, but she's going to pay a heavy price. Just because I think the banker deserves a kick doesn't mean it's going to happen. In fact I don't think there's the remotest chance of it ever happening. And if it did, it wouldn't help your friend one iota. She's got more things to worry about right now.

So here's another question for you -- what do you hope to achieve here by banging on endlessly about the misdeeds of the banker?


----------



## Sarenco (8 May 2018)

Your friend was obviously incredibly imprudent, perhaps even stupid, to take out such a big loan relative to her means.

But that's history.  She now has to deal with the consequences of her appalling decision.

Ranting and raving about "rogue bankers" doesn't help a jot.  Your friend is still liable to repay the loan that she signed up for regardless.


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> The banker told her that he didn't know what future interest rates would be, yet he told her she could afford them?


He said he expected them to go down.  Yes tracker rates have come down, but variable rates are still high.
All other people I ever met were told what their repayments (capital and interest) would be before they took out their mortgage. Mine certainly were.



dub_nerd said:


> Nobody could be unaware that houses prices have gone down in the past and could again in the future. At the time your friend bought there had already been two major printed/documentary items that caused national furores over the prospect of an imminent price collapse.


Hindsight is wonderful. On 4 July 2007, the Toiseach stated at a conference that he did not understand why people sitting on the sidelines, "cribbing and moaning" about the economy, did not commit suicide.  Many bank economists, media commentators, estate agents, property developers and business leaders went on the record to state their belief that the Irish property market was healthy.



dub_nerd said:


> I believe they conspired to give her a bigger mortgage than she should even have got. Yes, I'd love to see them punished and everyone else who stoked the bubble.


Well, Iceland is a country with a population of only about 330,000, but yet dozens of bankers have been jailed there. A popular and successful move there, by all accounts. 



dub_nerd said:


> what do you hope to achieve here by banging on endlessly about the misdeeds of the banker?


The borrower made mistakes, but so did the banker. Perhaps other people can be saved from such banking wrongdoing in the future?


----------



## dub_nerd (8 May 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> Nobody could be unaware that houses prices have gone down in the past and could again in the future. At the time your friend bought there had already been two major printed/documentary items that caused national furores over the prospect of an imminent price collapse.





usernameinuse said:


> Hindsight is wonderful. On 4 July 2007, the Toiseach stated at a conference that he did not understand why people sitting on the sidelines, "cribbing and moaning" about the economy, did not commit suicide.  Many bank economists, media commentators, estate agents, property developers and business leaders went on the record to state their belief that the Irish property market was healthy.


You truly have to be kidding. The government and vested interests talking up the economy? Has it ever been any other way? The fact of the matter is that rumours abounded about an imminent collapse. That's why the vested interests had to respond. Even _The Late Late Show_ featured several potential young borrowers and asked them how scared they were of a price collapse. You're not going to tell me they can't get _The Late Late Show_ in rural Ireland now, are you? Anyway, none of that is relevant. If your friend thinks Bertie Aherne talked her into an unsuitable mortgage along with the banker, let her sue him too. It won't help her.



dub_nerd said:


> what do you hope to achieve here by banging on endlessly about the misdeeds of the banker?





usernameinuse said:


> The borrower made mistakes, but so did the banker. Perhaps other people can be saved from such banking wrongdoing in the future?


Newsflash for you -- your warning about rogue bankers is ten years too late. The rest of us suffered the consequences, paid the hiked up taxes, and took it on the chin. Your friend did too obviously. As for people overpaying ridiculously for property -- that hasn't changed as people are doing it again. This time the banks are probably protecting themselves a bit better (though not enough in my opinion). No matter. Your warning is neither timely nor especially useful.


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## Sarenco (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Perhaps other people can be saved from such banking wrongdoing in the future?


But your friend didn't suffer any harm as a result of this alleged "wrong doing".  She got the loan she wanted.

Now she has to take responsibility for her appalling decision.


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> But your friend didn't suffer any harm as a result of this alleged "wrong doing".


Financially she did. If the banker had behaved as they promised to, and if they had not added 60k to her salary on her loan report, and used a false valuation, the borrower would not be in the position she is in. She would not have suffered such a huge loss, which was forseeable to the mortgage experts.



Sarenco said:


> She got the loan she wanted.


But not a loan suitable for her needs, not by a long shot. 
If a patient of the nurse "wanted" certain medication, and the nurse fraudulently altered documentation and gave her patient medication unsuitable to their needs, which changes the patients life forever, would not the nurse have questions to answer?


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## Sarenco (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Financially she did. If the banker had behaved as they promised to, and if they had not added 60k to her salary on her loan report, and used a false valuation, the borrower would not be in the position she is in. She would not have suffered such a huge loss, which was forseeable to the mortgage experts.


Didn't she apply for the loan?  Didn't she get what she wanted?

The fact that she was insane to look for such a big loan is her issue.  The bank has no responsibility to look after the borrower's interests.


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## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> Didn't she apply for the loan?  Didn't she get what she wanted?



Yes, and it was on the understanding that she submitted her P60, payslips etc to the bank for them to evaluate her suitability for a loan. They told her they done a loan report and she was suitable for a mortgage and could afford it. They did not tell her they fraudulently added over €60,000 to her salary on the loan report. 

She did not see the loan report, or valuation, until many years later.
Even the worst of second hand car salesmen would not behave like that.



Sarenco said:


> She got the loan she wanted.


As asked before, if a patient of the nurse "wanted" certain medication, and the nurse fraudulently altered documentation and gave her patient medication unsuitable to their needs, which changes the patients life forever, would not the nurse have questions to answer?






Sarenco said:


> The bank has no responsibility to look after the borrower's interests.


Then why does it claim, according to their own publicity, to look for _"proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future."  _As said before they advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) _"will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."



_


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## Sarenco (8 May 2018)

I really don't understand why you insist on these ridiculous analogies.

Your friend applied for a loan.  She got the loan.  If she can't uphold her end of the bargain, then she will have to face the consequences.

If the bank wants to pursue a former employee or valuer then that's up to them.  Again, it has absolutely nothing to do with your friend.

At this stage, I think we have all spent enough time on this thread.


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> I really don't understand why you insist on these ridiculous analogies.


Not all mine.  It was Maz2408 who wrote:



Maz2408 said:


> You went to a bank believing the information they were giving you was true, correct and in your best interest because they were the experts in that field.
> 
> Out of interest, how would it be if the Nurse in question gave you incorrect information regarding medication or treatment for say your 6 year old Child or your 80 year old Mother and it caused them serious harm.  Would the nurse be to blame or would it be your fault for being stupid in acting on her expert advice?




You also wrote: 





Sarenco said:


> The bank has no responsibility to look after the borrower's interests.


You still have not answered the question: Then why does it claim, according to their own publicity, to look for _"proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future." _As said before they advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) _"will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."
_
And why did the bank seemingly fraudulently alter the loan report and valuation, upon which the loan agreement was based?


----------



## Sarenco (8 May 2018)

Sigh.

Again, a lender carries out its own due diligence, however imperfectly, on a borrower's ability to meet her obligations for its own benefit - not for the benefit of the borrower.

A lender owes no duty of care to a borrower.  

Bottom line, a bank can be entirely reckless in advancing a loan - it does not provide a borrower with a defence in an enforcement scenario.

Your friend voluntarily took a loan.  She owes the bank money.  The rest is irrelevant.


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## RichInSpirit (8 May 2018)

Hi UserNameInUse.
I have great sympathy for your friend.
I think the bank has as big a problem as your friend with this loan. I think she should request a meeting with them and have a chat, and see if they can suggest any solutions to your friend.
But I suggest that she brings someone along with her, maybe yourself as both a witness and for moral support.


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## RichInSpirit (8 May 2018)

Also if she hasn't missed any payments yet she probably has an excellent credit rating at the moment.
To negotiate to try and find a solution before the problem actually hits may be a wise approach.


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## Sarenco (8 May 2018)

The smart thing for the borrower to do is to engage a PIP, through the Abhaile scheme, as previously advised by others.

Banging on about an alleged "fraud" is, at best, a complete waste of time.


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## LDFerguson (8 May 2018)

Evidently your friend placed a huge amount of faith and trust in what the banker was telling her.  So let me ask you this - if this banker had told her that she should borrow a million and that it would be grand, would she have done it?  How about two million?


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> a lender carries out its own due diligence, however imperfectly, on a borrower's ability to meet her obligations for its own benefit


It obviously did not do that in this case. Not only that but it looked at her P60 and payslips and added over 60k to her salary on its loan report, unknown to the borrower. That would be like a nurse or doctor altering a patients file, in order for the nurse or doctor to sell them a very expensive medication, but one which was totally unsuitable for the patients needs and which would alter the patients life forever for the worse. 



Sarenco said:


> The smart thing for the borrower to do is to engage a PIP


She had one meeting with a PIP already, and he was astonished when he saw the loan report, copies of her P60, payslips, valuation etc in her file. I understand he said there is doubt about PIA being suitable when the loan was obtained due to suspected fraud and wrongdoing, but he is get further opinion, think things over and arrange a second meeting. If it was investigated properly at least the borrower could be cleared of any suspicion of involvement in the fraudulent loan report and valuation.



LDFerguson said:


> Evidently your friend placed a huge amount of faith and trust in what the banker was telling her.  So let me ask you this - if this banker had told her that she should borrow a million and that it would be grand, would she have done it?  How about two million?


No, she just wanted a 3 bedroom house to live in, in a nice area. She was not greedy. She went to the mortgage experts, who had decades of experience, thinking it was the prudent thing to do. After all,  according to their own publicity, they look for (quote) _"proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future." _As said before they advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) _"will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."_
When you worked in the mortgage sector LDFerguson, did you ever see any mortgages being sold at say 10 or 15 times the borrowers salary, and if so, did the banker who sold them ever expect them to be repaid, or did he know it would end in tears for the borrower? Decades of tears?

Do you think if a patient of the nurse asked about certain medication, and the nurse fraudulently altered documentation and gave or sold her patient medication unsuitable to their needs, which changed the patients life forever for the worse, would not the nurse have questions to answer?



RichInSpirit said:


> Hi UserNameInUse.
> I have great sympathy for your friend.
> I think the bank has as big a problem as your friend with this loan. I think she should request a meeting with them and have a chat, and see if they can suggest any solutions to your friend.
> But I suggest that she brings someone along with her, maybe yourself as both a witness and for moral support.


Thank you for that. A meeting with the bank is a good suggestion. I'll suggest she brings someone along with her, for moral support and as a witness if nothing else, as she is the type who is easily fobbed off by technical jargon and experts in their field telling her what is best.


----------



## LDFerguson (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> No, she just wanted a 3 bedroom house to live in, in a nice area. She was not greedy.



She borrowed an amount - was it €550,000? - that she could not afford to borrow.  She applied for this amount, she was approved for this amount and she signed up for a loan of this amount.  According to you, the only reason that she borrowed €550,000 was because this banker told her it was affordable and had falsified documents to support it internally.  So if she borrowed €550,000 which she couldn't afford, then why wouldn't she borrow a million that she couldn't afford if she believed everything the banker told her?  (Let's assume that this banker would have been equally willing to falsify documents to support a loan of a million.)   



usernameinuse said:


> When you worked in the mortgage sector LDFerguson, did you ever see any mortgages being sold at say 10 or 15 times the borrowers salary, and if so, did the banker who sold them ever expect them to be repaid, or did he know it would end in tears for the borrower? Decades of tears?



Part of my job was arranging mortgages and giving advice.  So in that capacity, as a broker I replaced the local bank branch staff member.  I was the one collecting the payslips and evidence of income and sending them on to the various lenders' head offices for approval.  If someone was dealing directly with a bank branch, the bank branch would do the same.  I can only speak for myself.  I was never interested in getting involved with lies about a client's salary or falsifying documents in order to get them a bigger mortgage.  Not the sort of business I run.  I'm sure it happened though.


----------



## Sarenco (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> I understand he said there is doubt about PIA being suitable when the loan was obtained due to suspected fraud and wrongdoing


That is correct but, as already explained to you, that provision deals with circumstances where a debtor has fraudulently obtained a loan (which is criminal offence).  Unless you are suggesting that your friend acted fraudulently, that provision is totally irrelevant in this case.


usernameinuse said:


> Do you think if a patient of the nurse asked about certain medication, and the nurse fraudulently altered documentation and gave or sold her patient medication unsuitable to their needs, which changed the patients life forever for the worse, would not the nurse have questions to answer?


A nurse owes a duty of care to her patient.  A lender owes no duty of care to a borrower.  Your analogy is therefore completely meaningless.


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

LDFerguson said:


> She borrowed an amount - was it €550,000?


It was less than that, but I'd rather not say the exact amount, it is the borrowers business and I do not want to identify her.



LDFerguson said:


> why wouldn't she borrow a million that she couldn't afford


Because oldish 3 bedroom houses in a nice area was what she was quite happy to settle for, buy, and live in. And oldish 3 bedroom houses were not costing a million in rural areas , even in 2007.



LDFerguson said:


> Part of my job was arranging mortgages and giving advice.


Great, I hope you gave better advice that the banker who advised the nurse. However you did not answer the question. "Did you ever see any mortgages being sold at say 10 or 15 times the borrowers salary, and if so, did the banker who sold them ever expect them to be repaid, or did he know it would end in tears for the borrower? Decades of tears?"


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> A lender owes no duty of care to a borrower.


Then why does it claim, according to their own publicity, to look for_"proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future." _As said before they advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) _"will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."_

And why did the bank seemingly fraudulently alter the loan report and valuation, upon which the loan agreement was based?


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## RedOnion (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> As said before they advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) _"will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."_


Since you've repeated this several times.
I wouldn't take much comfort relying on a phrase EBS used in 2017. 10 years after your friend took out her mortgage.


----------



## Sarenco (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Then why does it claim, according to their own publicity, to look for_"proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future." _As said before they advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) _"will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."_


Again, for the umpteenth time, a bank will look for that documentation for its own benefit - not for the benefit of the borrower.


usernameinuse said:


> And why did the bank seemingly fraudulently alter the loan report and valuation, upon which the loan agreement was based?


You keep making that allegation but a bank obviously cannot defraud itself.

I'm starting to wonder if the real problem here is that your friend cannot demonstrate that she did not collude with the bank official to fraudulently obtain the loan and therefore would not be entitled to a PIA.  Is that the real concern?


----------



## Leo (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Then why does it claim, according to their own publicity, to look for_"proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future." _As said before they advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) _"will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."_


_
_
As stated a number of times by a number of people...they seek proof of earnings to protect their interest, they want to know that they'll get their money back. They didn't care back then or now how many holidays you get to go on, or how nice a car you drive, they're just interested in getting their money back and earning interest in the process.



usernameinuse said:


> And why did the bank seemingly fraudulently alter the loan report and valuation, upon which the loan agreement was based?



To allow your friend get the mortgage she asked for.

If you wish to address Sarenco's question above, please do so. Otherwise I see little point in continuing this cycle of you asking the same questions over and over, getting the same answers only to go on and repeat them again as you don not seem to like the answers.


----------



## LDFerguson (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Because oldish 3 bedroom houses in a nice area was what she was quite happy to settle for, buy, and live in. And oldish 3 bedroom houses were not costing a million in rural areas , even in 2007.



You've said that the first mortgage application she made offered her a far lower amount.  Evidently this wasn't enough for her.  So she went off to a different bank and applied again.  Because she wanted to buy for over half a million in a rural area in Ireland.  




usernameinuse said:


> Great, I hope you gave better advice that the banker who advised the nurse. However you did not answer the question. "Did you ever see any mortgages being sold at say 10 or 15 times the borrowers salary, and if so, did the banker who sold them ever expect them to be repaid, or did he know it would end in tears for the borrower? Decades of tears?"



I did answer the question.  In my capacity as broker, I was the one doing the "selling".  So no - I would not have come across salary multiples of 10 - 15 times the borrower's salary.  As I said, not the sort of business that would be of interest to me.


----------



## 24601 (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Then why does it claim, according to their own publicity, to look for_"proof that you have the earnings and self-discipline to repay your mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future." _As said before they advertise and claim to check the borrower (quote) _"will be comfortably able to afford your mortgage repayments with enough money left over to live your life in comfort."_



Out of curiosity, what do you think should happen? Do you think the bank should forgive the debt in part or in its entirety even though your friend borrowed the money? If they were willing to take the house back voluntarily and forgive the capital, would this be "fair" in your eyes?


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

LDFerguson said:


> You've said that the first mortgage application she made offered her a far lower amount.  Evidently this wasn't enough for her.  So she went off to a different bank and applied again.  Because she wanted to buy for over half a million in a rural area in Ireland.


I did not say it was over half a million. I did say her own bank refused her the loan for the 3 bedroom house and would not lend her anything like the amount she would have needed to buy it.



Sarenco said:


> You keep making that allegation but a bank obviously cannot defraud itself.


The banker defrauded those higher up in the bank,that is the difference. The borrower submitted the correct P60, payslips etc. Whoever read the loan report assumed she was on a salary over 60k more than she really was.



LDFerguson said:


> Part of my job was arranging mortgages and giving advice.


If you were arranging a mortgage and it was obvious to you that the borrower was borrowing 10 to 15 times their salary, would you have falsified the loan report by adding over 60k to the borrowers salary, so they could borrow the money? If you did that, would you consider that a criminal act?



LDFerguson said:


> I would not have come across salary multiples of 10 - 15 times the borrower's salary.


Well seeing as you worked in the mortgage industry, clearly the banker did something very abnormal in this loan so, to say the least.




Leo said:


> As stated a number of times by a number of people...they seek proof of earnings to protect their interest, they want to know that they'll get their money back. They didn't care back then or now how many holidays you get to go on, or how nice a car you drive, they're just interested in getting their money back and earning interest in the process.


They sought proof of earnings but they falsified the loan report and were not interested in getting the money back, as few borrowers could ever repay a loan 10 or 15 times their salary. The house is worth less now than the loan amount. The bank did not "protect their interest" as you say, in approving the loan.


----------



## LDFerguson (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> I did not say it was over half a million. I did say her own bank refused her the loan for the 3 bedroom house and would not lend her anything like the amount she would have needed to buy it.



You're being very coy about the figures involved.  You could state the amount borrowed to the nearest €10,000 or €20,000 without it being remotely possible for anyone to identify the individual.  You have said that the repayments are "under €1,800 per month" and that she put up a substantial deposit.  The figure of €1,800 per month on interest-only allows us to calculate the approximate size of the mortgage, assuming interest rates of 2007.  

But regardless of whether or not you continue to be coy about what the actual amounts involved are, the fact remains that she went to her own bank and they wouldn't give her the loan that she wanted.  So she got told by her own bank that she couldn't afford a larger loan.  But she went off to another bank because she wanted to borrow more and buy more.      


usernameinuse said:


> Well seeing as you worked in the mortgage industry, clearly the banker did something very abnormal in this loan so, to say the least.



I have no idea how normal or abnormal this practice was.  Bankers who were falsifying internal documents wouldn't be likely to broadcast this fact too widely.  As I have already said, I can only speak for myself and the firm that I have run for the past twenty years.


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

24601 said:


> Out of curiosity, what do you think should happen? Do you think the bank should forgive the debt in part or in its entirety even though your friend borrowed the money? If they were willing to take the house back voluntarily and forgive the capital, would this be "fair" in your eyes?



The borrower has gone through hell worrying about financial matters as a result of taking out the loan she should never have applied for *or* been approved for. She is a caring person, finance is not her area of expertise. She has lost a sizeable deposit, almost €200,000 she paid in generous variable interest rates, she has spent a 5 figure sum maintaining the house, she is willing to surrender the house and even pay more to the bank. I told her to get her file and to see a PIP, she has arranged a second meeting with him. I told her she should get expert opinion and double check it. When the banker and the bank tell the truth of what happened, a fair outcome may be obtained.

I am not sure what is "fair" in her eyes, I gather she has been advised to have the banker and valuer investigated by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB). She thinks people should be better warned, and bankers who do wrongdoing properly investigated and punished accordingly, so it does not happen again. She thinks that would be "fair".

Her life has been destroyed, she accepts she should not have taken out the loan. She expected when she submitted her p60 and payslips for the bank, as they requested, to assess if she "could afford the mortgage" as they said, they would do so honestly. She does not want the bank doing the same to others as they did to her. Especially when the bank still claims they will check the borrower will be comfortably able to afford their mortgage repayments, with enough money left over to live their lives in comfort! That is adding insult to injury.



LDFerguson said:


> You're being very coy about the figures involved.  You could state the amount borrowed to the nearest €10,000 or €20,000 ...


I do not want to risk identifying the individual, I have already stated lots of details about her. However as you say yourself the figures I gave allow you to calculate the approximate size of the loan amount. Somewhere between say 400k and 550k, it does not really matter the exact amount.



LDFerguson said:


> I have no idea how normal or abnormal this practice was. Bankers who were falsifying internal documents wouldn't be likely to broadcast this fact too widely. As I have already said, I can only speak for myself and the firm that I have run for the past twenty years.


But in your considerable experience in the mortgage industry, you did not come across borrowers who were approved for loans 10 or 15 times their salary, so clearly something out of the ordinary happened in this case.

I asked you already, if someone falsified the loan report by adding over 60k to the borrowers salary, so they could borrow the money, would you consider that a criminal act?

A homeless person could go in to a Mercedes showroom and ask for a loan for a €100,000 Mercedes, but the relevant people should not give him a loan if he cannot pay it back. Especially if they advertise that they get his P60, payslips etc to assess his ability to repay the loan, and then they falsify documentation and give him the car anyway. Whose fault is that? Entirely the homeless person?


----------



## Leo (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> They sought proof of earnings but they falsified the loan report and were not interested in getting the money back,



So now the bank were a charity, giving out money to all who asked with no interest in getting a return..



usernameinuse said:


> A homeless person could go in to a Mercedes showroom and ask for a loan for a €100,000 Mercedes, but the relevant people should not give him a loan if he cannot pay it back. Especially if they advertise that they get his P60, payslips etc to assess his ability to repay the loan, and then they falsify documentation and give him the car anyway. Whose fault is that? Entirely the homeless person?



Again, this point has been covered multiple times. In this scenario, the homeless person is entirely to blame for taking out a loan and purchasing something the could not afford.


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

Leo said:


> So now the bank were a charity, giving out money to all who asked with no interest in getting a return..
> .


In this case, due to the banker defrauding his superiors about the borrowers true salary, they gave out money which the borrower could never repay. Who could repay a loan 10 or 15 times their income? That does not make the bank a charity, it makes the bank a possible victim of fraud by whoever ignored the P60, payslips etc and who made out the false loan report and valuation.   




Leo said:


> In this scenario, the homeless person is entirely to blame for taking out a loan and purchasing something the could not afford.


So you think no blame, not even 1 or 2%, should be attributable to the banker who gave the homeless person the loan, after fraudulently deceiving his superiors in the bank in to thinking that the homeless person was really on 60k a year more than he was, and the car was a different specification? Bonus for that banker in fact?
And if the homeless person is entirely to blame for asking for and getting a loan in a €100,000 Mercedes and driving away in one, you think its ok if the next day the banker lends 100K to another homeless person, after fraudulently changing documentation in the bank?  Do not forget the bank advertises the fact they look for proof that the borrower has the earnings and self-discipline to repay the loan not just for the first year but long into the future_.
_
In this scenario, there is no law against homeless people asking a garage or a bank if they can borrow €100,000 for a Mercedes. If a business is asked to lend someone money who has not and almost certainly never will have the income to pay it back, then the employee of the business has a responsibility to that business and to the shareholders of that business not to lend the money.


----------



## dub_nerd (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> So you think no blame, not even 1 or 2%, should be attributable to the banker who gave the homeless person the loan.


It's like this: if you come to me looking for a loan, that loan is expected to be paid back in full. It doesn't matter where I got the money you borrowed, even if I stole it, and it doesn't matter how or if I planned to make a profit on the transaction. So your question might be of interest to the bank. It is of no relevance or concern to the borrower. As an adult legally able to enter into a contract their decision to borrow and the responsibility to be fully informed of what they were getting into was theirs alone. And no, anything they were told by the lender does not affect this unless it was written into a contract.



usernameinuse said:


> ...the employee of the business has a responsibility to that business and to the shareholders of that business not to lend the money.


... which has precisely nothing to do with the borrower.


----------



## LDFerguson (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> I do not want to risk identifying the individual, I have already stated lots of details about her. However as you say yourself the figures I gave allow you to calculate the approximate size of the loan amount. Somewhere between say 400k and 550k, it does not really matter the exact amount.



So if you disclose on Askaboutmoney.com that she borrowed €490,000 eleven years ago, you think that someone somewhere will remember "ah yes - that's the customer Jane Bloggs who borrowed €490,000 in 2007?"  

Anyway, I agree with you that the exact amount doesn't matter.  She was told by her own bank that she wouldn't qualify for the size of loan she requested because she couldn't afford it.  But instead of accepting that, she went off to another bank and applied again because her own bank wouldn't approve her for as much as she wanted.  So she applied for €400,000 - €550,000 and was accepted on her second attempt.  




usernameinuse said:


> But in your considerable experience in the mortgage industry, you did not come across borrowers who were approved for loans 10 or 15 times their salary, so clearly something out of the ordinary happened in this case.



You're missing the point.  As a broker running my own business, the people I came across were my own clients.  And I wouldn't have advised them to borrow such high multiples, or entertained altering documents in order that someone would qualify for more than what their bank had offered them.  So the reason that I did not come across such clients was because that's not the sort of business I run.  But in the scheme of things, my business is tiny in this country.  So such practices might have been widespread.  Or they might have been rare.  What went on among my clients is not representative of the country as a whole.


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

LDFerguson said:


> As a broker running my own business, the people I came across were my own clients.  And I wouldn't have advised them to borrow such high multiples, or entertained altering documents in order that someone would qualify for more than what their bank had offered them.



And over the 20 years you worked in the mortgage industry, you must have met hundreds of other people who worked in the industry, and possibly thousands of clients, socially and through work.  You never once heard "on the grapevine" or otherwise of someone getting a loan of say 10 or 15 times their salary, or a banker adding over €60,000 to a relatively normal workers level of salary, a huge increase. Which makes this case all the more unique and worthy of investigation, wouldn't you say? 

I asked you twice already "if someone falsified the loan report by adding over 60k to the borrowers salary, so they could borrow the money, would you consider that a criminal act?" and you did not reply, so I am not going to ask you the same question again.


----------



## usernameinuse (8 May 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> ... which has precisely nothing to do with the borrower.


It has everything to do with the lender though. In the scenario we discussed, the employee of the business has a responsibility to that business and to the shareholders of that business not to lend the money. If every homeless person who went in to a Mercedes dealership and asked could he buy a €100,000 car was lent the money to buy one after the lender fraudulently deceived his superiors in the bank in to thinking that the homeless person was really on 60k a year more than he was, and the car was a different specification, then the lender would not last long.


----------



## Sarenco (8 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> It has everything to do with the lender though.


Indeed but you originally asked whether a lender had a duty of care towards a borrower.

Again, for the umpteenth time, a lender has no duty of care towards a borrower.

If a lender has an issue with an ex-employee or valuer, that's a matter for the lender.  Nothing to do with the borrower.

Incidentally, a mortgage of anywhere between €400,000 and €550,000, plus a "sizeable deposit", would have bought one hell of a three-bed house in rural Ireland in 2007.  The average price paid for a house nationally at that time was only around €300,000.


----------



## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> Indeed but you originally asked whether a lender had a duty of care towards a borrower.


Incorrect. Originally I asked Should the bank have had a duty of care to behave *honestly* to its customers?  Big difference. 

Would you care to answer the question ""if someone falsified the loan report by adding over 60k to the borrowers salary, so they could borrow the money, would you consider that a criminal act?"




Sarenco said:


> Incidentally, a mortgage of anywhere between €400,000 and €550,000, plus a "sizeable deposit", would have bought one hell of a three-bed house in rural Ireland in 2007.
> The average price paid for a house nationally at that time was only around €300,000.



You are correct about average price of second hand houses nationally in 2007 being about €308,000. However it is fair to say prices varied a lot depending on location. Location, location, location as they say. Houses could go for a lot more than €308,000 if they were in a nice, scenic location, as I said it was. Obviously some sites houses are built on are more valuable than others. However, more to the point, why did the bankers cousin, the valuer he appointed, say it was a 5 bedroom with double glazing, when it was a 3 bedroom with all but one window single glazed? Have you ever come across a valuer getting basic facts like that wrong before? Something very wrong, would you not agree?


----------



## coolhandluke (9 May 2018)

As a no. of posters have said, this doesn't add up at all............something very strange about the price paid for a run down 3 bed in rural Ireland.

I wonder is there a lot more to this we are not being told and now a serious case of buyers remorse.......

Blaming the people who facilitated the bad decision is a waste of time, and further evidence of a lack of acceptance. 

The fact that the buyers own bank would not give the loan and then they went elsewhere, shows that they already had the figure they wanted and that the loan did not cause them to higher their expectation.


----------



## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> If a lender has an issue with an ex-employee or valuer, that's a matter for the lender.  Nothing to do with the borrower.


The borrower was asked to pay for a valuation by a particular valuer, and had no choice in the valuer. She was entitled to a copy of the valuation at the time of the mortgage, not many years later. The bank failed in its duty there (s125).  When even basic facts are incorrect in the valuation, she is entitled to ask the bank for an explanation. She paid for a service and is due an explanation at the very least. 



coolhandluke said:


> .something very strange about the price paid for a run down 3 bed in rural Ireland.


 Not if it was in a nice scenic location, on a site with a lovely coastal view, for example. Such houses were always expensive.


----------



## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

coolhandluke said:


> The fact that the buyers own bank would not give the loan and then they went elsewhere, shows that they already had the figure they wanted and that the loan did not cause them to higher their expectation.



If a homeless person walks in to a BMW garage and asks for a loan for a €100,000 car, and the garage rightly refuses him, that does not say a Mercedes garage should be excused from given the person a loan for a €100,000 car by falsifying his income by over €60,000 per year, and changing the spec and type of car on loan documentation.  The employee of the business has a responsibility to that business and to the shareholders of that business not to lend the money.


----------



## Sarenco (9 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Incorrect. Originally I asked Should the bank have had a duty of care to behave *honestly* to its customers?


A lender has no duty of care to a borrower.  Adding the words "to behave honestly" is meaningless.  

No duty of care means no duty of care.  Full stop.


usernameinuse said:


> You are correct about average price of second hand houses nationally in 2007 being about €308,000.


Indeed and that was the national average in 2007 - including Dublin.

Your friend paid at least twice the average price for a 3-bed house in rural Ireland in 2007.  And that's being charitable.

Can you see why we are skeptical about your story?


----------



## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> Your friend paid at least twice the average price for a 3-bed house in rural Ireland in 2007.  And that's being charitable.


She did not actually.  Do your sums again. And do not forget that a detached house with a sea view in say Kinsale for example (not that it is in Kinsale) is worth a lot more than a terraced house in some other villages or towns in Ireland.

If a patient of the nurse "wanted" certain medication, and the nurse fraudulently altered documentation and gave her patient medication unsuitable to their needs, which changes the patients life forever, would not the nurse have questions to answer?


----------



## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

By the way Sarenco, would you care to answer the question asked previously "if someone falsified the loan report by adding over 60k to the borrowers salary, so they could borrow the money, would you consider that a criminal act?"


----------



## coolhandluke (9 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> If a homeless person walks in to a BMW garage and asks for a loan for a €100,000 car, and the garage rightly refuses him, that does not say a Mercedes garage should be excused from given the person a loan for a €100,000 car by falsifying his income by over €60,000 per year, and changing the spec and type of car on loan documentation.  The employee of the business has a responsibility to that business and to the shareholders of that business not to lend the money.



But your friend clearly had a figure that they wanted, they were not given it initially and went somewhere else to get it.......end of story, the rest of your argument is irrelevant.

What sort of mortgage did they get, was it an investment ?

Was there something about that particular site that they insisted on buying at a clearly much inflated price , that never materialised ?


----------



## Sarenco (9 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> By the way Sarenco, would you care to answer the question asked previously "if someone falsified the loan report by adding over 60k to the borrowers salary, so they could borrow the money, would you consider that a criminal act?"


Obtaining a loan by fraudulent means is a criminal offence.  Colluding in the commission of that offence is not, in and of itself, a crime.

In any event, none of this is of any assistance to your friend.  If you won't disclose what actually happened we can't help.


----------



## Sarenco (9 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> She did not actually.  Do your sums again. And do not forget that a detached house with a sea view in say Kinsale for example (not that it is in Kinsale) is worth a lot more than a terraced house in some other villages or towns in Ireland.


So you want us to feel sympathy for somebody on an average wage that borrowed way more than they could possibly afford to buy a detached house with a sea view "in say Kinsale".

Are you for real?


----------



## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

coolhandluke said:


> But your friend clearly had a figure that they wanted, they were not given it initially and went somewhere else to get it......


You could say the same about a homeless person in the scenario where they went in to a BMW garage and asked for a loan for a €100,000 car.  They "clearly had a figure that they wanted, they were not given it initially and went somewhere else to get it.".  That does not excuse a Mercedes banker from giving it by telling his superiors the borrower earned over €60k more than he did, and by fidling the spec of the car. 



coolhandluke said:


> Was there something about that particular site that they insisted on buying at a clearly much inflated price , that never materialised ?


No.


----------



## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> If you won't disclose what actually happened we can't help.


It is the bank who will not explain what happened - why their banker added over 60k on the loan report, the loan valuation etc.



Sarenco said:


> ... to buy a detached house with a sea view "in say Kinsale".


I said it was not Kinsale. The borrower could not have afforded a nice house in Kinsale. I was pointing out the reason why some houses in Ireland are worth more than others.


----------



## Sarenco (9 May 2018)

Again, for the umpteenth time, the bank has no obligation to explain what happened. That is entirely an internal matter for the bank.

I obviously know that some houses in Ireland are worth more than others.  I wouldn't expect somebody on a relatively modest wage to think they should be in a position buy a house with a sea view in one of the most expensive areas in Ireland.  Would you?


----------



## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> Obtaining a loan by fraudulent means is a criminal offence.  Colluding in the commission of that offence is not, in and of itself, a crime.


The loan was obtained for the borrower by falsifying the loan report. That was unknown to the borrower, who never saw the loan report until many years later.  Under the definition that a crime or offence (or criminal offence) is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society or the state ("a public wrong"), the banker did seemingly commit a crime, unless he can explain otherwise.


----------



## coolhandluke (9 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> You could say the same about a homeless person in the scenario where they went in to a BMW garage and asked for a loan for a €100,000 car.  They "clearly had a figure that they wanted, they were not given it initially and went somewhere else to get it.".  That does not excuse a Mercedes banker from giving it by telling his superiors the borrower earned over €60k more than he did, and by fidling the spec of the car.
> 
> 
> No.



The EBS was giving out loans in the boom based on people's projected overtime earnings, ì know many who got them. You are barking up the wrong tree, with your insistence on the one dimensional argument it will not do you or your friend any good.

Your friend got the loan she wanted AFTER she was refused elsewhere, she is responsible for seeking the amount of money she did, you are not helping her one bit with your refusal to recognise the reality of her situation.

If in your argument she shouldn't have got the loan, then she shouldn't be living in the house......but she did and she is, for now.


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## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> I wouldn't expect somebody on a relatively modest wage to think they should be in a position buy a house with a sea view in one of the most expensive areas in Ireland.  Would you?


I said it was not Kinsale, she could not afford Kinsale, so what makes you think she bought a house with a sea view in one of the most expensive areas in Ireland? Incidentally I would have thought some of the most expensive areas in Ireland were Dalkey, Howth, Monkstown etc, which are very different.


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## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

coolhandluke said:


> based on people's projected overtime earnings,


No mention of overtime in the loan report, and the nurse could not have done over €60k worth of overtime. She submitted her P60 and payslips.


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## coolhandluke (9 May 2018)

What sort of mortgage did she get ?


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## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

coolhandluke said:


> What sort of mortgage did she get ?


A very bad one, considering it was interest only and variable rate, with no indication of what the full monthly repayments would be when the interest only period was over. And one she would not have got if the banker behaved honestly.


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## usernameinuse (9 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> Adding the words "to behave honestly" is meaningless.


Some may disagree with you there. The bank asked the borrower for proof - P60, payslips etc- that she had the earnings to repay the mortgage not just for the first year but long into the future.
Originally I asked Should the bank have had a duty of care *to behave* *honestly* to its customers? If the banker had behaved honestly he would not have added over 60k to the nurses salary, or got his relation to do the false valuation.  Why did he do that?
The borrower was unaware of it.

Would the banker give a homeless person a loan of €100,000 for a car just because he "asked for it"?


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## Leo (9 May 2018)

usernameinuse said:


> Originally I asked Should the bank have had a duty of care *to behave* *honestly* to its customers?



Hopefully now it's clear that the bank have no duty of care.



usernameinuse said:


> If the banker had behaved honestly he would not have added over 60k to the nurses salary, or got his relation to do the false valuation.  Why did he do that?



Again, as answered multiple times, that was done to give your friend the mortgage they asked for.



usernameinuse said:


> Would the banker give a homeless person a loan of €100,000 for a car just because he "asked for it"?



Obviously most banks wouldn't, just like your friend's bank refused. But if said homeless person was determined to have a €100k car for whatever reason, they might find a lender (perhaps sub-prime) who would be willing to give them what they asked for. A few years later, if the homeless person discovers they can no longer afford the car, they have no come back against the bank.

10 pages and almost 200 posts in, you are still asking the same fundamental questions. You seem unable or unwilling to accept the answers given, and persist in asking, varying the semantics trying to find a different answer. I think it's time for us all to move on.


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