# No Further Redress for those who lost homes



## RealDeal (22 Jul 2020)

This afternoon I spoke to AIB 'helpline' about my account - the guy who I spoke with advised me clearly that the redress scheme was only that prescribed by the Ombudsman 12% plus interest paid - I told him that my home was surrendered to AIB following repossession proceedings being initiated and he clearly stated that no further scheme was available to those who lost homes. 

Why do you think AIB are failing to follow the Central Bank's guidelines for dealing with those who lost their homes ? with 28k written off I would have had very little arrears and would surely have been suitable for a split arrangement? Are AIB hoping that the Central Bank won't intervene having written their final report? 

This situation add's to the stress that loosing ones home causes and it looks like AIB are happy to see this drag on through the Ombudsman for another few years - Why?


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## bungaro (22 Jul 2020)

I wonder if this is just a case of semantics? This redress is only following on from the judgement on Karen's case which was 12% and the interest. Considering Karen didn't lose her house then there was nothing in her case ruling which is what the bank are using. But for anyone who lost a house, I'd hope that AIB will have a separate route for compensation and if not then the FSPO would look at your case


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## zxcvbnm (22 Jul 2020)

Hmm. That doesn’t make sense. I hope you’re wrong but I suppose it would not surprise me. 

Perhaps @brendan can confirm if there was any instruction from the central bank to aib after the ombudsman’s decision to also appropriately cater for people whereby the additional 12% mortgage was the tipping point for being no longer able to afford the mortgage? 
Aib may well sidestep the issue and put the onus on customers to pursue them. But that would really be a new low.


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## RealDeal (22 Jul 2020)

It looks like the FSPO is the only next option - they are only processing the ombudsman's decision across the board - they told me the amount that they wrote off my residual balance and claimed a cheque for the 'interest paid' on that amount will issue - no further payments are required by the FSPO's decision. To my knowledge Karen didn't receive compensation etc... either. they are not following the CB's guidelines as issued in 2015 and are claiming that all they must do is follow the FSPO's decision in Karens case. when will the nonsense end?


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## zxcvbnm (22 Jul 2020)

So did you have arrears  when you surrendered your property? Did they state they Would give you the full 12% plus interest irrespective of arrears you had? 
It doesn’t make any sense to me that the central bank  wont insist aib confirm they 12% extra on mortgage was a tipping point forcing  sale. 

Did the guy you spoke with in the phone definitely clued into your predicament ? Maybe he was just spouting a generic line without fully understanding the situation. 

I’m in the same boat as you by the way. Surrendered property. had 2 other properties impacted last time round which  the bank admitted causal of sale. But the value of this property was far greater. The whole thing resulted in my insolvency.


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## RealDeal (24 Jul 2020)

@zxcvbnm yes he seemed to understand- the 12% reduction came off the residual balance owed - no admission that wrong rate had any impact on ultimate surrender of home.
Simply restated line that they were implementing FSPO decision only. 
There seems not even to be an appeals process? 
I think we need to get on to the Central Bank - prior to letters issuing- it may put some pressure on them.


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## Brendan Burgess (24 Jul 2020)

RealDeal said:


> I think we need to get on to the Central Bank - prior to letters issuing- it may put some pressure on them.



Forget that. The Central Bank has made its decisions. 

A few of you need to be prepared to talk on the record to journalists and appear in the papers and on radio and TV. It is only negative publicity which will force a change of heart at this stage.

Look at the way the 4 people who appeared at the Oireachtas Finance Committee to tell their personal stories changed the whole debate. 

Brendan


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## zxcvbnm (24 Jul 2020)

@brendan. Surely the central bank have some influence here? I was personally working on the assumption there would already be an overarching agreement/ understanding in place  between aib and central bank for customers whereby if the 12% extra on mortgage was tipping point of forced sale then they would have to be treated differently?


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## Nailligo (24 Jul 2020)

How can The Central Bank release principles for redress and then go back on them now? @Brendan Burgess would you think they are worth the paper they're written on now or does the latest decision  supersede them?
I have had no contact still from the bank but a 'write down' won't greatly benefit any of us who lost homes and credit rating etc when, as @zxcvbnm says, 12% could have made all the difference a few years ago.


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## Brendan Burgess (24 Jul 2020)

Guys if you want change go to the media.

If you want to get it off your chest and you are not worried about change, just write to the Central Bank.  It will take you months and you will get nowhere. 

Brendan


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## MovingOn (24 Jul 2020)

That is shocking that AIB won't entertain people who went through the horrific stress of losing their home or having surrendered their home.   As Brendan says, contact the media when the cheques come out.  Get on to Joe Duffy - AIB hate being mentioned on Joe Duffy.  I'm ex bank staff and this is the route I would take if I'd lost my home.   That 12% could have made all the difference - you would have add an extra 250 to 300 euro per month and that would have gone a long way to cover the bills.   I didn't lose my home (I was lucky) but I went through the MARP process and that in itself was the most stressful period of my life.


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## RealDeal (25 Jul 2020)

I think that those who lost homes must really step forward and be ready to speak about this issue publicly - I have sent my story to several news outlets and I hope that others will do the same. We need to get AIB to do the decent thing and redress us for the loss of homes and property.


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## zxcvbnm (26 Jul 2020)

I think let’s wait and see what the letter from aib holds. I don’t believe  that if aib did not dispute the 12% extra was causal to sale and didn’t compensate accordingly that the central bank would simply  shrug their shoulders and basically  say tough luck to the customer. That would be completely at odds to their attitude last time round and would lack any consistency. 

Determining that a mortgage would have been sustainable if it was 12% less is however a different matter. We are getting into very fine lines of tipping points there. 

My own case is pretty complex as I have other arguments which I intend to bring to the ombudsman should I not be satisfied with payout. 
But if it’s a straightforward case of one property it may be a challenge  to convince a 3rd party that the extra 12% each month in mortgage payments was the difference between keeping and surrendering a property. It’s very fine margins.

As an aside I am also curious as to will arrears be deducted from a payout? (Assuming that anyone who surrendered a property presumably had some arrears before eventual sale)


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## Brendan Burgess (26 Jul 2020)

zxcvbnm said:


> As an aside I am also curious as to will arrears be deducted from a payout?



Arrears is only a notional figure - put that out of your head.

Typically a situation is that when someone lost their home, they were in negative equity. 

For example -
Mortgage €300k 
House worth €200k
Shortfall: €100k  

For simplicity, let's say that the capital write down is €30k and the interest refund is €10k. 

People were told by the  help line, that the shortfall will now be written down to €70k.  I suspect that they will also put the interest refund of €10k against it. 

So the borrower in this position will now have a smaller shortfall. 

In may cases, AIB did a deal on the shortfall e.g. 36 monthly payments of €200.

It will be interesting to see how they propose to deal with that.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (26 Jul 2020)

zxcvbnm said:


> Determining that a mortgage would have been sustainable if it was 12% less is however a different matter. We are getting into very fine lines of tipping points there.



This is going to be very difficult because of the Ombudsman's decisions.

In other tracker cases it was easier, although still difficult. 

Say AIB had given you a tracker at ECB +1% instead of the SVR of 4.5%, the  repayments would have been €1200 instead of €1,500. 

If the person was paying nothing anyway, the loss of the tracker was not causal.
But if they were paying €800, AIB could have found a restructuring if they were on a tracker. 

But with a 12% write down, how do you assess causality? 
If the payments had been 12% lower,  could it have been restructured? 
Or if the bank had offered a tracker at ECB + 1.5% could it have been restructured? 

I don't know how the Ombudsman will view these. 



Brendan


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## zxcvbnm (26 Jul 2020)

Brendan Burgess said:


> This is going to be very difficult because of the Ombudsman's decisions.
> 
> In other tracker cases it was easier, although still difficult.
> 
> ...



Last time round for me, they hypothetically  applied the tracker rate to the mortgage and based on the SFS i had supplied at the time, they did a calculation as to whether I could have afforded the mortgage. (Presumably they had a way of determining general living expenses as is done for insolvency)
i.e. it was a cold hard calculation. It wasn't an opinion of I 'probably' could or could not have afforded it. The answer was binary. IN that case they agreed I could have afforded the properties based on the figures and therefore paid out compensation accordingly.

I'm assuming the same thing will happen this time round.
i.e. based on the SFS submitted at the time using a mortgage owed at12% less, they will determine whether it was affordable or not. That's why the 12% is such a fine tipping point. Not many will fit into that category.

I'm assuming they will have another hard calculation made. This time I will definitely be asking for the calculation to run through the figures myself.

However - just because they may deem it was not affordable that does not mean the case is closed. If a mortgage is reduced its possible they may well have been more flexible in bridging a gap in terms of extending interest only etc. OR maybe the gap was more manageable generally and customer could have made additional efforts to pay up some more. Basically it may not have been viewed  as much of a hopeless case.


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## Nailligo (27 Jul 2020)

I just got the call from AIB to let me know there's money due to me etc. forms will be sent to fill in, and cheque will follow (I have a deceased co-borrower so need the executor to sign something too).
The guy making the call didn't have all the info which is fair enough as he seemed to be just going through a list.
I asked was there going to be an option for people who lost their homes to discuss things further and was told that info will be available in the letter that is due in the next few weeks.
Now maybe that's the usual 'if you're not happy, please call the Ombudsman etc' but fingers crossed it's not that much of a fob off.


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## zxcvbnm (27 Jul 2020)

Nailligo said:


> I just got the call from AIB to let me know there's money due to me etc. forms will be sent to fill in, and cheque will follow (I have a deceased co-borrower so need the executor to sign something too).
> The guy making the call didn't have all the info which is fair enough as he seemed to be just going through a list.
> I asked was there going to be an option for people who lost their homes to discuss things further and was told that info will be available in the letter that is due in the next few weeks.
> Now maybe that's the usual 'if you're not happy, please call the Ombudsman etc' but fingers crossed it's not that much of a fob off.



I’m surprised  they rang. I assumed any communication initiated by aib was through a letter. May I ask did you surrender your property? Is that what prompted a call I wonder?


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## Nailligo (27 Jul 2020)

@zxcvbnm The guy was ringing to let me know how much I was due. I have no account with AIB any more so it'd have to be a cheque so maybe that was the reason for the call?
I surrendered the house as part of an Insolvency arrangement in 2016.


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## RealDeal (27 Jul 2020)

Nailligo said:


> @zxcvbnm The guy was ringing to let me know how much I was due. I have no account with AIB any more so it'd have to be a cheque so maybe that was the reason for the call?
> I surrendered the house as part of an Insolvency arrangement in 2016.



If he told you how much you were due - is it simply the interest on the 12% or a further payment? Do you have a residual amount o/S?


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## Nailligo (28 Jul 2020)

RealDeal said:


> If he told you how much you were due - is it simply the interest on the 12% or a further payment? Do you have a residual amount o/S?


He couldn't tell me the breakdown but it's €38k so I'm presuming it's the 12% write down plus the interest amount. I'll probably get a clearer picture on that with the letter due. My interest rate changed quite a few times over the time I did have the mortgage so I couldn't tie down the figures using the calculator.
I have nothing outstanding as I completed Insolvency, the bank sold the house and I fought to get the residual written off after the sale.
That's the situation simplified.


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## zxcvbnm (28 Jul 2020)

Could the house have been saved had your mortgage been 12% less? Or was insolvency on the cards anyway? 

I’m in a similar situation and am hoping the payout will reflect causal of sale. Just curious if you are in the same boat (in which case I can only  expect the 12% plus interest at most)


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## tnegun (28 Jul 2020)

I lost a BTL several years after exiting the fixed rate, I'm hoping to demonstrate that between what we would of saved had the 12% been deducted 3 years previously and the pension contributions I started to make the same month the bank said they wanted the property sold for loss. That there was more than enough to service the mortgage on the BTL (I was less than €200 pm short of full repayments) along with the rent as I had been doing for 5/6 years at that point. What do you think? Is this an argument that would be entertained?


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## RealDeal (28 Jul 2020)

It’s amazing to think that the Central Bank has approved a scheme that ignores the very principles that they set.
They have let customers down who need them to stand up when wrongs are done - it seems like a case that AIB are too big to be regulated


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## Nailligo (28 Jul 2020)

zxcvbnm said:


> Could the house have been saved had your mortgage been 12% less? Or was insolvency on the cards anyway?
> 
> I’m in a similar situation and am hoping the payout will reflect causal of sale. Just curious if you are in the same boat (in which case I can only  expect the 12% plus interest at most)




Maybe not 12% less in terms of capital but had I been on the tracker rate then it would definitely have been affordable, repayments would have been nearly €400 less a month. My repayments when I started talking to the bank were at their highest in the 10 years of having the mortgage.
Insolvency only came about because a lot of other options were exhausted/ignored - pay break, shelving a portion. My arrears were less than €10k at the time so it wasn't like I had actively stopped paying.

I believe there has to be more after this...I  want my credit rating restored and if I was to get another mortgage, I'd be fighting for first time buyers status. 
My BDO appeal at the time included a lot more than just the redress, so this is only the beginning for me (again).

Would 12% have helped you at the time?


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## Brendan Burgess (28 Jul 2020)

tnegun said:


> I lost a BTL several years after exiting the fixed rate, I'm hoping to demonstrate that between what we would of saved had the 12% been deducted 3 years previously



I would caution people here that in the vast majority of cases, houses were lost because the borrower was unable to make any reasonable payment.  In most cases, where the borrower was paying a decent amount, AIB restructured the mortgage.

So, in most cases the Ombudsman will not find that the loss of the property was due to the failure to offer a tracker at the end of the fixed rate. 

I have not seen any decision from the Ombudsman on a loss of ownership issue, but the only approach I think he can take, given his decision would be as follows: 

The repayment was €X per month.  The amount paid by the borrower was insufficiently close to this to enable AIB to offer a restructure.   Had the repayment been €X - 12% X,  could it have been restructured? 

In numbers 
Case A) The repayment due was €1,000 a month  but the borrower had paid nothing at all for a year. Reducing the €1,000 by 12% to to €880 would have made no difference.  The failure to offer a tracker was not causal.

Case B) The repayment was due was €1,000 a month and the borrower was consistently paying €700 a month. AIB did not offer a restructure. However, had the repayment been €880, they could have come up with a restructure,so the failure to offer a tracker was causal.


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## Nailligo (28 Jul 2020)

tnegun said:


> I lost a BTL several years after exiting the fixed rate, I'm hoping to demonstrate that between what we would of saved had the 12% been deducted 3 years previously and the pension contributions I started to make the same month the bank said they wanted the property sold for loss. That there was more than enough to service the mortgage on the BTL (I was less than €200 pm short of full repayments) along with the rent as I had been doing for 5/6 years at that point. What do you think? Is this an argument that would be entertained?



It's hard to know isn't it? One thing I can say on this is when I when I went to the bank with my situation, they told me maybe my dog was costing too much and to get rid of her and spend less...this was the sort of 'help' they offered at one point. 
When I specifially requested interest only or tracker rate (before any of this came up), they went deaf to me. 
Anything is worth trying at this point.


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## tnegun (28 Jul 2020)

Called the helpline again today to ask specifically about further compensation. It was all very friendly and professional but the stance is these are not covered under the tracker review so those principals do not apply, no appeals panel will be setup in this regard and it will need to be a complaint to the FSPO for anything further. They could see that I had an appeal open with the BDO and did say that panel might take a different view and to wait and see. The contradictions are unreal the specifically call out Prevailing Rate under the Mortgage Tracker Review section on the AIB site more picking and choosing what suits AIB best while trumping about making things right!


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## Nailligo (29 Aug 2020)

This is a long shot but...I will be asking for more compensation due to the loss of my house. 
I got payment instruction forms this week (deceased co-borrower, need proof that there is a personal representative etc) so actual payment of initial redress will be in the next couple of weeks I presume.
But, I was wondering what peoples thoughts might be in relation to timescales.
My keys went back to the bank in March 2016, at this point the investigation in to the tracker issue had started therefore would it be a valid argument to say that as my mortgage was issued between certain dates and came out of fixed rate between certain dates, the bank *SHOULD* have put any disputes/insolvencies/surrenders etc on hold?
I personally believe it's a valid line to take but maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree?


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## RealDeal (2 Sep 2020)

zxcvbnm said:


> I’m surprised  they rang. I assumed any communication initiated by aib was through a letter. May I ask did you surrender your property? Is that what prompted a call I wonder?


*tnegun
zxcvbnm did you loose your property?*


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## zxcvbnm (2 Sep 2020)

RealDeal said:


> *tnegun
> zxcvbnm did you loose your property?*



I lost multiple properties because of teh tracker issue


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## RealDeal (2 Sep 2020)

zxcvbnm said:


> I lost multiple properties because of teh tracker issue


What are you planning on now in terms of next step? I have made a complaint to AIB seeking the CBI scheme redress


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## tnegun (2 Sep 2020)

Yes but not the one with the AIB mortgage so I've to prove it was related. I believe I can do this as the initial shortfall was sub €200 per month on our BTL the bank refused to come to any alternative arrangement other than sale for loss. Applying the 12% from the date we exited fixed 3 years prior to entering arrears on the BTL mortgage would of meant not only would our AIB mortgage be approx €100-€150 per month less we'd also of had that for 36 months too. I've a lot going on but I'm drafting a complaint to AIB too regarding it.


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## zxcvbnm (3 Sep 2020)

RealDeal said:


> What are you planning on now in terms of next step? I have made a complaint to AIB seeking the CBI scheme redress



Currently liaising with an advisor on how best to progress.


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