# "98% of people who wrongfully had their trackers taken off them have had them restored"



## Aidan.obrien (22 Oct 2017)

According to Leo varadkar in the Irish examiner "98% of people who wrongfully had their trackers taken off them have had them restored." 


Where does that leave the rest of us still fighting to get our trackers back !?
Leo obviously thinks we have no case!!!


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## Lightening (22 Oct 2017)

It's confusing!

KBC have not even completed phase II and still waiting on other banks to own up to thousands of others impacted

This statement needs to be clarified or finished correctly;

I would suggest it is 98 percent of the 13,000 already confirmed as impacted are back on tracker.


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## moneymakeover (22 Oct 2017)

Padraic Kissane has said there are at least 30,000 accounts/customers affected

And David Hall estimated 45,000

Article in yesterday's Irish times argues the only explanation for the banks fighting this so much is because the numbers are much higher than we think.

Otherwise why would they blatantly flaunt the rule of law?


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## Lightening (22 Oct 2017)

I totally agree! It's a scam! Not a scandal


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## Stitcher (22 Oct 2017)

I agree, a very confusing statistic. 

Definitely must apply to only selected cohorts and it would be great to see a break down of that % into actual  numbers, from which banks, on what type of product and what rates they are on.  

Does it take account of those given back a Tracker at the wrong rate?


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## Brendan Burgess (22 Oct 2017)

7,000 people were identified before the current review and they have all had their trackers restored. 

13,000 _have been identified so far in this review _







Of those 13,000 - 5,300 have moved lender or redeemed their mortgage, so they have not been sorted out yet.

Most of the remaining 7,700 have had their trackers restored.

There is considerable disagreement between the Central Bank and the lenders over whether someone should have lost their tracker or not. Obviously, if the bank thinks that you gave up your tracker voluntarily, then you have not been put back on the tracker rate yet.

Brendan


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## Sarenco (22 Oct 2017)

Brendan Burgess said:


> There is considerable disagreement between the Central Bank and the lenders over whether someone should have lost their tracker or not. Obviously, if the bank thinks that you gave up your tracker voluntarily, then you have not been put back on the tracker rate yet.


Hi Brendan

Would you have any sense whether dealing with the Central Bank's "challenges" to the lenders' determination as to what borrowers have a contractual right to a tracker is delaying the payment of redress to those borrowers that have already been put back on trackers?


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## Brendan Burgess (22 Oct 2017)

Hi Sarenco

Where people have been identified, they have got their trackers back, other than the 5,500 who have redeemed their mortgages. 

A lot of staff have been involved in identifying affected cases. They are still working on that. That is a huge task, made even bigger by the Central Bank's insistence that they review 2m mortgages. 

The refund of the overcharge is a complex calculation, made more complex by the fact that many of them had their mortgages restructured. 

The compensation depends on the Central Bank agreeing the compensation scheme.  So if they have not agreed whether someone is impacted or not, they can't agree on a compensation scheme. 

And don't forget it's not just Bank of Ireland and the Central Bank. It is Bank of Ireland and their independent reviewers. And the Central Bank and their independent reviewers. So there are 2 m accounts with lots of chefs involved. 

So if the staff are involved in trawling through accounts, they won't be free to calculate the overcharge.

Brendan


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## DamC82 (22 Oct 2017)

Are there really 2 million mortgages accounts being reviewed Brendan? There's only around 2 millions households in Ireland in total and a huge percentage have no mortgage on them.. in 2011 there were 770,000 residential mortgages, I don't imagine there's many more now.


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## Thomas (22 Oct 2017)

As they are going back a number of years one person could have 2-3 or more mortgage accounts as a result of switching or trading up so the 2m (which the central bank confirmed was the number of accounts they were reviewing on Thursday) makes sense.


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## peemac (22 Oct 2017)

Aidan.obrien said:


> According to Leo varadkar in the Irish examiner "98% of people who wrongfully had their trackers taken off them have had them restored."
> 
> 
> Where does that leave the rest of us still fighting to get our trackers back !?
> Leo obviously thinks we have no case!!!


My guess is that the journalist took the quote down incorrectly or like the indo,  has changed the quote to create a sensationalist headline. 

I much prefer the words I saw him speak on the news on Thursday - no second hand journalistic twist on those. 

And he certainly was not saying 98% had trackers back.

The amount of mis-reporting by the media on this is phenomenal - would almost make me think they are jumping on the bandwagon for their own gain without regard to publishing verifiable information.

A few financial journalists such as Ian Guider and Charlie Weston & Irish Times in general have not gone down the sensationalist route and are more informed than the others.


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## ryflava (22 Oct 2017)

I found that statistic hard to understand too I rang the so called BOI helpline on Friday & according to her, BOI haven't sent out any letters to anybody yet & it will be another 5/6 weeks before they have this done At this stage I don't know who to believe


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## Threadser (22 Oct 2017)

[QUOTE="ryflava, post: 1536702, member: 101854" it will be another 5/6 weeks before they have this done [/QUOTE] What's another 5 or 6 weeks when you've almost been waiting  almost a year already


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## Brendan Burgess (23 Oct 2017)

DamC82 said:


> Are there really 2 million mortgages accounts being reviewed Brendan? There's only around 2 millions households in Ireland in total and a huge percentage have no mortgage on them.. in 2011 there were 770,000 residential mortgages, I don't imagine there's many more now.



Hi Dam 

Derville Rowland said it twice at the Oireachtas Finance Committee hearing and I thought that there must be some mistake. I did the same calculations as you and said that there weren't even 2m mortgages. So I emailed the Central Bank press office and got this reply: 

"If you have a look at the Executive Summary from the March Update (available here), on page 3, it states:


“The Examination is the largest, most complex and significant supervisory review that the Central Bank has undertaken to date in respect of its consumer protection mandate and involved an initial review of more than two million mortgage accounts by lenders (being the total mortgage book in the relevant period) to identify the number of in scope accounts.”"


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## Brendan Burgess (23 Oct 2017)

ryflava said:


> BOI haven't sent out any letters to anybody yet & it will be another 5/6 weeks before they have this done At this stage I don't know who to believe



IIRC, Bank of Ireland has identified a few hundred impacted customers and has put them back on the tracker rate. They may not yet have written to them or given them a refund.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (23 Oct 2017)

This is what Bank of Ireland told the Oireachtas Committee 


In 2015, the Central Bank of Ireland announced that it required all Lenders in Ireland to each conduct
a Tracker Mortgage Examination. This Examination, with which the Bank is fully cooperating, is
ongoing. The scale and complexity of the examination is significant and having commenced in 2016
is expected to conclude this year.  

Bank of Ireland had identified 602 accounts where, contrary to their loan documentation, a right to
or the option of a tracker rate of interest was not provided to the customer.

Separately, whilst conducting the review the Bank also identified a small rate differential, of on
average 0.15%, on 3,654 accounts currently on a tracker rate of interest, which is not the rate
specified in the loan documentation.  

Over the first quarter of 2017 we prioritised restoring impacted customers to the correct tracker
interest rate.  The majority of the customers impacted by the rate differential, and where the
account remained open and on an incorrect rate, have now been contacted and the rate on their
account has been corrected.   

*In respect of the 602 accounts which were to be returned to a tracker, this has taken place in all of
the cases where the mortgage account is still open. *

The bank is also working to establish a redress and compensation scheme in line with the principles
set out by the Central Bank including:
 The payment of compensation;
 Payment toward independent advice as appropriate; and
 An independent appeals process.  

An independent third party, Deloitte, has been engaged to review key aspects of Bank of Ireland’s
work in respect of the redress and compensation scheme. When this scheme has been established
we will communicate with the customers identified as impacted.  

As confirmed in February 2017 at the time of our Annual Results, we have included a provision of
€25 million in our accounts in respect of the overall cost of the Examination including redress and
compensation.


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## Banking17 (23 Oct 2017)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Dam
> 
> Derville Rowland said it twice at the Oireachtas Finance Committee hearing and I thought that there must be some mistake. I did the same calculations as you and said that there weren't even 2m mortgages. So I emailed the Central Bank press office and got this reply:
> 
> ...



I have looked back again at the Transcript of last weeks Finance Committee.  The CB said that  36% of the total 2m mortgages were in scope ie approx. 719,000 which were all examined it stated? ( Cant see how they can confirm this)

 Of this approx. 112,000 cases are considered relevant to Review.
This info was confirmed with Ml McGrath by Prof Lane.

From all of this im still unclear as many thousands, such as I with Ulster  are awaiting a decision to know if we are impacted or not.
The review of the 112,000 is not complete and the total number to be impacted is obviously dependant on full completion and verification of Phase2?


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## peemac (23 Oct 2017)

So 2,000,000 mortgages
of which 719,000 are trackers
of which 112,000 made a change of some type that requires checking. 

Suggests that 607,000 tracker holders did not make any change don't require any checking. 

Also tells us that there were over 700,000 tracker mortgages issued in the 6 years or so that they existed.


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## Brendan Burgess (23 Oct 2017)

This is how it was explained to me by the press office

*In scope*

In the course of the Examination the lender is to review all mortgage accounts in respect of both Private Dwelling Houses and Buy-to-Let properties:

•  that originated on Tracker Interest Rates;

•  that had Tracker Interest Rates applied at any stage during the term of the underlying mortgage agreements; and/or

•  where the underlying mortgage agreements provided for contractual rights to or options2 for Tracker Interest Rates at any stage during the term of the agreements.

For the avoidance of doubt, this includes all mortgage accounts that have been redeemed, sold or transferred to another entity by the lender, together with mortgage accounts where the customer has lost possession of the secured property for any reason (including by way of voluntary and involuntary sale).


*Impacted*

Customers whose lender has failed to comply with contractual and/or regulatory requirements relating to their tracker mortgages.


Example of a customer considered in-scope but not impacted:  Customer originated on a tracker interest rate (in-scope) and has remained on that same tracker margin since origination (not impacted).


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## ryflava (23 Oct 2017)

Well I can only go by what she told meShe said no one has been contacted yet?? They apparently scent issued any letters??  Personally I don't believe a word they say to be honest


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## Delboy (23 Oct 2017)

David Hall is on Newstalk now discussing this issue and taking some calls from listeners who lost out.
He seems to be fast becoming the media go to guy on this scandal


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## TrackerThieves (23 Oct 2017)

Pretty sure the 98% figure that has been quoted was misquoted from the central bank / finance committee meeting last Thursday. The 98% was in relation to the tracker accounts that have been charged the wrong rate at any stage wether it was for a few week or a few years, which have now been returned to the correct rate and was definitely not in relation to accounts that lost their tracker rate. I will have a look through the transcript of the meeting later and see if I can find the exact quote


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## MsBinky (23 Oct 2017)

With regards to the complexity of identification of the impacted,  the  calculations ,  contact and redress how come AIB/EBS  and PTSB can be so far along, almost a year ahead of the rest? Not withstanding those in dispute thinking that they have a case, or those like myself appealing from affected to a property loss or those on incorrect rate, the Lions share of the work was completed, affected advised, calculations done and redress paid. If anything the first to complete their investigation should have had the most hiccups 

Without doubt, AIB had their own agenda for their efficiency  ( for the want of a better word ) but what this does tell us that where there is a will, there is most work done? 

I've said it before , the internal processes have been done by others, caluations etc. Why are the remainder of the banks ( whom we know talk to each other when it suits) not sharing information etc or being asked to share it by the CB to speed things along? We're not talking trade secrets,  just processes.

CB should have enforced fines long before now as part of the phases, less lawyering up time for the banks more will/ incentive.

Oh and a big thanks to UB and KBC for their arrogance at the Oireachtas committee meetings,  surely helped in the recent media interest, superb own goal in my opinion.


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## TrackerThieves (23 Oct 2017)

Ms Derville Rowland:There are some timing issues. Within the population of customers who have been identified as being impacted by this issue, rate rectification has occurred in nearly all instances. There is a figure of 98% in the documentation. Within the balance, there may be a very small population to still obtain rate rectification, which is occurring and which should be complete very soon, but the remainder of the balance relates to cases that were rectified previously. In such circumstances, we never expect that number to increase to 100%. We are looking at the 2% region because they were on the wrong rate for a short period and it was already fixed earlier. Another group of people no longer have tracker mortgages.

this was taken from full transcript from central banks finance committee meeting i can't post the link but can be found on the oireachtas website.

after rereading along with the table on first page of this post it seems they mean accounts that banks have agreed to be impacted an needing rate rectification. which is 7,700 of the 13,000. So this wouldn't include any of the disputed cohorts. Would be intresting to know how many of these 98% are being disputed as being correct by the banks but wrong rates by the customers/financial advisors such as the ecb+2.25% or ecb+3.25%


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