# Missold Mortgages



## Maz2408 (27 Jun 2013)

*Personal and income details*
Net 736pm
employed: part time, 
Net income partner/spouse: 3293.30pm full time employment: 
number of children: No dependents

*Home loan*
Lender: PTSB
Amount outstanding: 127,475 on 1Plan & 84,405 Home Loan: Total (211,880) 
Value of home: 180000
Interest rate: 4.34% on 1Plan & 1.75% Tracker on Home Loan
Monthly repayment: 1453.90 inc Mortgage protection & House Ins,
Amount in arrears : 1700 

Made full payments until April 2013 now engaging with Arrears Support unit, refused entry to MARP in March 2013 (pre-arrears).

*Investment property - x 2* 
Lender: PTSB
Amount outstanding: 165000 & 160000 (TOTAL 325000)
Value of homes: 70-80000 & 120-125000 (TOTAL 205000max)
Interest rate: Tracker IO RIP @ 1.6% & IO RIP @ 5.64%
Monthly repayment 1214.32 inc Mort protection & House Ins.
Amount in arrears: 3820
Monthly rent received: 951

*Other loans and creditors - *delete those which don't apply to you
Credit Card 284pm repayments x 2 = 8300 Total Owed
Bank Loan: 332pm, 7750 outstanding 
Living Expenses
2100pm, Includes, Repairs & Maintenance & Household charge on 3 Houses, PRTB on 2 Houses. Running 2 cars because we work different hours, but are trying to work out a way of making one car do, Have not paid Credit cards this month as I have been told by PTSB not to pay them, 
*Other savings and investments *
*600 credit union,*


*How important is retaining the family home to you? *
Want to keep the family home,

*Any other relevant information*

*Believe we were missold 1Plan and RIPs in2007, when we were enquiring about a pension from PTSB and were advised by PTSB advisor to release equity in our home and take interest only RIPs, on the assurance that it was a good investment. Never in a position to make repayments but advisor told us to use 1plan for deposits and shortfall in payments and sell in two years time and we would be able to pay off all mortgages including home. Sounded great at the time.*

*Currently "engaging with PTSB regarding arrears and MARP"*


*What is your preferred realistic outcome? *
*We will never be in a position to pay off all these mortgages but want to keep our family home that only had a 120000 mortgage on it, before we were stupid and listened to an Irish Life and Ptsb advisor in 2007.*


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## Bronte (27 Jun 2013)

Maz2408 said:


> *Believe we were missold 1Plan and RIPs in2007, when we were enquiring about a pension from PTSB and were advised by PTSB advisor to release equity in our home and take interest only RIPs, on the assurance that it was a good investment. Never in a position to make repayments but advisor told us to use 1plan for deposits and shortfall in payments and sell in two years time and we would be able to pay off all mortgages including home. Sounded great at the time.*
> 
> *.*


 
(More banking geniuses. Interesting. )

Your income is 4029 less mortgage of 1453 leaves you with 2576. 

Your other loans are 284 + 332 + 264 (on the rent shortfall) = 880. From your income that leaves you with 1696. 

Can you explain why 2 people with no children can not live on 1696 a month? What is the amount the new insolvency regime decided a couple with 2 cars needs to live on. 

I agree that the rentals make no sense, particularly as there will be no way you can pay the capital back when the term ends. Only way it will work out is if in say 20 years the values have crept up to the current mortgage, which could well be the case. If not presumable when you've the home paid back, you'll lose that to the rentals. You need to think very clearly on that. And so do a lot of other people.  You could try and leverage that. One of the investments is on a very high interest rate.  Any chance PTSB might reduce it?


I assume if you stop paying the credit card, they will come to an arrangement with you. Ring them, tell them you've no money and the bank is telling you not to pay them, they might come back with say 50 Euro a month and zero interest.


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## Gerry Canning (27 Jun 2013)

Your comment (more banking geniuses)

This Mortgage Mis-selling has been neatly packaged as the Customers Responsibilty.

Your nett 1696 a month is within the new guidelines.

Yes , you took PROFESSIONAL advice so as you could make a £ . But since the ADVISOR had a vested interest in the advice so given , they cannot walk 100% from their responsibility.

Do Not be (bullied) and keep an eye on Mortgage Mis-selling as time moves on.


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## Maz2408 (27 Jun 2013)

Thank You Bronte, we do realise we are not banking geniuses, our skills are in hospitality service, skills we used all our lives earning a hard living and paying our taxes.  Since the age of 15 in my case and the age of 17 in my husbands.  Those skills never made us banking Geniuses which is why we went to professionals for financial advice in 2007, but i'm proud to say they are skills that have allowed us to contribute to the Irish economy for the past 34 years without ever taking a penny from the state. If we had been banking geniuses we would not be in this mess, we were instead two hard working people who went to our existing financial institution to ask for advice on a pension that would provide for our future when the time came that we would no longer be able to contribute to society through employment.  When we were given a figure of 450pm for 25 years for a traditional pension and could not commit to that amount for that period of time, the financial advisor started showing us evidence of how much property prices had increased over the previous few years and provided us with a short term financial plan of re-mortgaging our home to release 150000 equity which would be used to pay deposits and cover all monthly mortgage payments on R.I.Ps that he would arrange interest only mortgages on, it terrified us, but we were assured that these type of investments where the norm and as property prices would continue to rise we would within two years be able to sell the R.I.Ps and pay off our home mortgage.  We of course had many reservations, but constant assurance from the financial advisor that this was a solid investment, spurred us on, at one meeting he went as far as to tell us we would be stupid not to do it, which was offensive but again convincing that he knew what he was talking about. We of course were stupid, we took his advice because we had no reason not to trust him and believed he was acting in our best interest, and by doing so accumulated 475000 worth of debt that could clearly never be repaid on top of our existing mortgage, all in the space of a 4 month period.  We were also stupid in believing our banking system was trustworthy, and that our government would never stand by and allow the corruption in the banking system that we have all witnessed over the past few years.  While we have been financially crippled over the last six years by acting on the advice we were given by a Ptsb advisor, Ptsb have received approx. 150000 from us on mortgage debt that they knew from the outset that we can never repay.


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## 22+allin (27 Jun 2013)

After the phone tapes why bother paying the banks anything?


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## Gerry Canning (28 Jun 2013)

Maz, REf your response to Bronte.

Suggest you Google Financial Regulator, then Consumer Protection Code Aug 2006.

Go to page 9 General Principles.
This gives the (supposed) Rules Ptsb are permitted by Central Bank to operate under.
From your comments to Bronte Ptsb are in breech of EVEN these general codes.

From what you posted.
1. You went in for Pension Advice.
2. You came out with property and more debt?
3. Believed Ptsb were acting in YOUR interest.
4. Ptsb knew the Debt (without price rises) was unsustauinable.

And you say YOU WERE STUPID !!. I am tired of people internalizing blame onto themselves.
EG: You go to a Professional eg a Doctor, he tells you take Drug A , if YOU didn,t take his advice you WOULD be stupid..
You went to a REGULATED Professional Banker , he sold you property and even told you, you would be STUPID not to buy.
Add on the fact that Mr Banker had a vested interest in you taking this on , so I reckon from what you wrote you were ill-advised.

In my book ANY PROFESSIONAL in ANY PROFESSION that is Regulated needs to CLEARLY abide by their Code.

Hope this makes sense.


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## Bronte (28 Jun 2013)

Maz2408 said:


> we do realise we are not banking geniuses, .


 

Just to be clear, the reason I put the comment about banking geniuses in brackets was that my point was directed at bankers. I'd be banned on here if I wrote my reall opinion of bankers, and I met a choice one only 2 months ago (manager). Nothing has changed there. 

Every word of what you've written rings true, I've no doubt on that. But that is not going to help you get out of this mess. Salmon seems to think you have a case for mis selling. But I don't think a banks fiduciary duties run that deep, at the end of the day you unfortunatly decided to do what the bankers advised, it's this sort of thing that ought to be changed, so that customers are not duped, or innocent people are not let down by people they trust. In my world, I've a list of people not to trust, bankers, politicians and auctioneers would be in rank 1 etc.

Maybe we need a debate on personal responsibility and how that ties in with the state's obligations to regulate and prevent mis selling. But we cannot have the nanny state either. 

You can be sure the bank agent who told you to take a mortgage will deny your story.  He's probably fired if the bank is smart and want to get rid of those who knew what went on, or else instead of commissions on mortgages me is probably in debt collection hounding people for their stupidity.


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## Gerry Canning (28 Jun 2013)

Bronte said:


> Just to be clear, the reason I put the comment about banking geniuses in brackets was that my point was directed at bankers. I'd be banned on here if I wrote my reall opinion of bankers, and I met a choice one only 2 months ago (manager). Nothing has changed there.
> 
> Every word of what you've written rings true, I've no doubt on that. But that is not going to help you get out of this mess. Salmon seems to think you have a case for mis selling. But I don't think a banks fiduciary duties run that deep, at the end of the day you unfortunatly decided to do what the bankers advised, it's this sort of thing that ought to be changed, so that customers are not duped, or innocent people are not let down by people they trust. In my world, I've a list of people not to trust, bankers, politicians and auctioneers would be in rank 1 etc.
> 
> ...


 ...................................................................
Fair enough Bronte, I didn,t mean to strongly imply a miss-selling case, but should things turn nasty it may help to ask the Bank these Questions.
Either the Consumer Code has legs or it is a waste of time.

I have no doubt that Fiduciary Care will be brought into Court. I am not Naiive enough to think it will win out , but I am very inclined to think it may take the Sharpness off any Banks Claws !!


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## Maz2408 (28 Jun 2013)

Thank's for the responses, and apologies Bronte for misunderstanding your quote. I don't doubt that PTSB are going to refute and defend claims of miss-selling the mortgages, but I have nothing left to loose at this stage, I'm hoping the fact that the financial advisor told us that he and his Son had made a fortune from property over the previous years will be something that can be checked and may sway, also hoping that the fact we were offered two Interest only mortgages which we had no way of ever making capital repayments on will also be a factor. I'm aware that if we continue to pay off our home mortgage which I have no problem doing even though it is also in negative equity, but are then not able to pay down the negative equity in the R.I.Ps, (which I would do if finances allowed so I would at least know that someday this nightmare would end), PTSB will come after our home once we have very little owing on it or have paid it off.  I know if I was in the UK which is probably where i'm going to end up if this can't be resolved, I would have a very strong case re; miss-selling, but I don't have any faith in the banking, legal or any other system in this country anymore. The thought of leaving the home and Country we love is almost unbearable, but it seems we have the choice of being enslaved to PTSB debt for the rest of our lives or giving up our lives here to start again.


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## Maz2408 (28 Jun 2013)

Thank's Salmon, those codes are the reason I have decided to pursue a complaint, but I really don't hold out much hope, even if I do have a case the government and legal system are going to support the bank, less the floodgates open, that's why their is no evidence of miss-selling mortgages in this country to date and is likely never going to be.  I have sent off the letter of complaint today, wish me luck.


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## Billo (28 Jun 2013)

I wish you luck with your letter, but you will need a lot of luck to get anywhere with it.

The country is in a mess. Kenny blames Martin. But who was in opposition when FF were in power ?. Of course it was Kenny and he did F. all. Kenny will do nothing now to stop the rot. 
Nobody is responsible in this country especially the further up you go. They are lining their own pockets so why should they care.
Rant over.


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## wbbs (28 Jun 2013)

Is it mis-selling if the adviser believed it himself?  If he told you he had made money doing this which there is no doubt lots of people did then how do you prove he did not think it was a good idea.   Did the bank themselves actually sell you the houses or did you find the houses yourselves and then go back for the mortgages?  

I have to admit at the risk of being run off the page that I was a mortgage adviser for many years and never advised anyone to do something like that, however I was well known as a pessimist about the future of the whole thing    By the way never got commission on sales of any products, straightforward salary only.


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## Maz2408 (29 Jun 2013)

Hi wbbs I have no doubt the advisor believed property prices were going to continue to increase, but another scenario could be, I work in a food service operation, if a customer came to me with a severe nut allergy and asked me to recommend a menu item that I was sure had no traces of nut and I repeatedly recommended a dish assuring her it was safe, in the belief myself that this dish contained no traces of nut, and it turned out I was wrong and she then became extremely ill, would I and the business I work for not be held responsible.


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## wbbs (29 Jun 2013)

I don't really think that is the same, financial advice can always only be based on the best advice on the day, no one can really predict which is why all those ads on tv etc carry the small print warnings 'values can go up or down' sort of things.   Shares, bonds etc are all based on predictions and past performance so are always at best guesswork.   Same argument could be used by people advised by their financial advisers to buy bank shares, that was good advice at one time but they have all lost everything now too.


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## Maz2408 (29 Jun 2013)

I think we will have to agree to disagree, it was the method of selling the product that was harmful, in my scenario it is my duty to inform a customer that I cannot guarantee that any menu item does not contain nut trace, simply because all products used to create that dish are purchased from outside sources, so I can never be truly sure there was no risk attached, I on the other hand was assured and re-assured that the product being sold to me was never going to cost me anything, and I would be stupid not to purchase it.  If based on our income which the advisor had full knowledge of, he had said i'm positive property prices are going to increase but if they did plummet you would not be in a financial position to repay the debt and would risk losing your home, I would never have purchased the product he was selling me. The advice was so poor that I swear on my Grandchildren's lives that it was only when we started to think about selling the two properties at negative equity values and accepting that we would have to suck up the 150000 1plan loan which he advised us to take to enable us to carry out his financial plan for us, that we found we were responsible for the shortfall, between sale price and mortgage debt.


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## wbbs (29 Jun 2013)

It is very unfortunate now there is no doubt about that.   Even if you didn't read the accompanying documentation yourself did your solicitor not go through the loan offer with you or point out the pitfalls?  To be fair the loan offer would clearly show the usual warnings.


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## cremeegg (29 Jun 2013)

salmon9077 said:


> Maz, REf your response to Bronte.
> 
> 
> And you say YOU WERE STUPID !!. I am tired of people internalizing blame onto themselves.
> ...



I cannot agree with you here. Anyone who blindly follows professional advice gets whats good for the professional, not what is good for themselves.

To illustrate by reference to the doctor. Many doctors routinely prescribe antibiotics for viral infections. This is of no medical benefit to the patient and is slightly harmful, as it can lead to antibiotic resistance.

Blindly accepting advice from others is childish, and seeking to blame lack of regulation is just transferring this childish dependence from the original "professional" to the regulator.

Would the OP in her catering business have bought a new product from a supplier without satisfying herself that it was suitable. I doubt it. And this is a decision with consequences in the hundreds of Euro

But she took financial decisions involving hundreds of thousand of euro based on some "professional" advisors opinion.

I feel extremely sorry for the OP and I fully realise that I or anyone can make a foolish decision, but regulation is not the answer. Caveat emptor.


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## Maz2408 (29 Jun 2013)

In fairness to our Solicitor, when we went in to sign for the last mortgage in June 2007 she asked if we were sure we wanted to do this, I asked her why she asked, and she told us there were signs that the property bubble was going to burst, so before signing we went back to our adviser who was in an office no more than 100 yards from our solicitor and he was enraged and I mean really enraged that the solicitor would tell us such a thing and again denied that this would happen, I pleaded with him not to phone her as he was threatening to do, I know we were completely naïve and caught up in the whole thing, but we also trusted what he was telling us, he had worked in the business for over 30 years.  We have, read our mortgage documents over and over and other than the standard warning, Your home is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage, I don't see any warning on any document provided that warns us that we are responsible for any shortfall between the property price and mortgage debt.  Why isn't this printed anywhere. We had paid a 35% deposit on one property and 20% on the other, why? surely the deposit system is in place to protect the bank should house prices fall, why is there nothing in place to protect the customer, especially when the price of property was with hindsight, clearly over valued because of banking activity in relation to mortgages.  As you worked as a Mortgage Adviser wbbs, could you clarify if I have been misinformed that mortgage protection was required on Residential investment property as it was sold to us as a requirement for the R.I.P mortgages, we questioned the adviser about the mortgage protection at the time he mentioned it to us, because the plan was to resell within a couple of years as we had no way of repaying the loans much beyond that, he told us it was required by the bank, our mortgage offers also state it is a requirement, these payments go to our Mortgage provider every month as does our home insurance, which shows my naivety, I had no clue until February this year that I could move my insurance to another company, I thought the insurance was part of my mortgage agreement with Irish Life Ptsb, even before these investments I had my home insurance and mortgage protection on our home through them, but other than signing for it we never received any documents until earlier this year when I decided to take my head out of the sand and do something, I noticed on the Mortgage protection part that I was paying much less on one mortgage protection than I was on the other even though both mortgages were nearly the same amount and were signed for only one month apart, I phoned the bank and asked for a copy of our up to date mortgage protection policies and was shocked to find that one was level term but the other was decreasing, even though we had purchased 2 interest only mortgages. The same adviser took care of all the paperwork.


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## wbbs (29 Jun 2013)

I imagine it isn't printed anywhere about owing the shortfall and  I find it hard to understand how you could thought any other outcome was likely.   If you buy practically anything and borrow to do so, then sell and lose money, you still owe the original money borrowed, how could it be any different?  If you sold a bit of your catering equipment to someone and he owed your €500 but came back and said I sold it on and only got €300 so here's your €300, I doubt you would be too pleased with that transaction especially if you owed the supplier €500.

To answer your mortgage protection query, there is an exemption allowed under regulation for properties other than your principal private residence, in other words mortgage protection is not mandatory, however any bank can decide their own business policy on this and can if they wish made it a condition of the loan, some do some don't.


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## SarahMc (29 Jun 2013)

Fair play to your solicitor. You got two professional opinions, you chose to believe one over the other.


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## Maz2408 (29 Jun 2013)

True Sarah, hindsight is a wonderful thing, if, it were available before you make the wrong choice. I can see your reasoning wbbs, but fortunately for the banks the same reasoning doesn't' apply, they can borrow billions, bankrupt the country and carry on as normal with no penalties.  The sad part is there doesn't have to be debt write down to fix the mortgage crisis, most people are the same as me and would be willing to pay the banks back in full if the banks would show any level of common sense about it, my own example for instance, I pay around 1800 per month on interest payments on the loans, there is no money left over and never will be to pay down the capital debt, why would it not make sense to the banks to say Ok we'll take 1000 euro pm as the interest portion and the remaining 800 would be used to pay the capital down, in 10 years time the negative equity would be paid down and borrowers could sell and repay the remaining debt, and the banks will have made 120000 in interest payments over the same period of time and receive full repayment of debt as well.  Instead of forcing people in to short sails and possibly never receiving a fraction of the remaining debt.


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## cremeegg (29 Jun 2013)

You came here looking for practical advise and so far you have not really received much.

I do agree with Bronte that your income appears adequate to live on after paying your loans.

You need to stop focussing on the circumstances surrounding the taking out of the mortgages. It sounds like you were badly advised but at this stage that is ancient history, You should give due consideration to suing PTSB for mis-selling, talk to your solicitor and the decide to forget about it. I very much doubt this is a fruitful road for you.

You say at one point that you have nothing left to loose. Yet that does not really come across in your posts.

You have a home you like, work and a life. You sound to me like you have a lot to lose.

You said that you have not paid the credit cards this month "I was told by PTSB not to pay them" This is back to blaming others, you must decide what is in your best interest, don't rely on PTSB to tell you what to do.

My advice is to continue paying the mortgage capital and interest on your home, if you keep doing that I cannot see your home being repossessed certainly while it is in negative equity.

Next the loan and the credit card. If you put 270 per month in total to these they would be paid off in 6 years. I suggest going to these lenders telling them that PTSB have told you to stop paying them and asking them to freeze interest in return for 300 a month for 3 years and write off the balance. Just keep writing to them telling them this is what you are doing and also tell them that if they accept the money they are accepting your terms.

Then pay IO on the rental properties, you can afford it and in time they may recover the NE or rents may rise, things may improve.

Your situation is difficult but not impossible.

Take your own decisions and tell the bank, don't ask for their instructions


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## Maz2408 (29 Jun 2013)

Thank's Cremegg, already contacted my bank today regards consolidating existing loan and the highest credit card debt which is with the same bank, I am hoping that as I have only missed one payment and I have always been up to date on previous loans etc, that they will agree to do this, I have to call in to my local branch on Monday, if it works out I will just be extending the original loan period by a couple of years at very little extra cost per month. 

The reason I said I have nothing else to lose is because I know that if I continue paying interest only on investment properties and full repayments on home mortgage it is inevitable that at some point they will come after my home as unless property market recovers at least to a level of the outstanding debt on my investment properties, I am never going to be able to repay the capital.

I have already asked if the capital repayments I am making on my home could be shared equally among the three properties to basically spread the risk, but at least I would be paying some capital off all loans, in the hope that in 10 years time the property market will have recovered and allow me to sell the investment properties and continue paying my home mortgage, they refused, I have asked for an extension to the term of my home mortgage of 7 years to allow me to pay some of the capital on the investment properties, they refused, I have also asked if I continue making full interest payments on the investment properties and continue making full payments on home mortgage, could they guarantee that they wouldn't come after my home if full capital could not be repaid on investments and they said no, even though at that stage 15 years from now they would have received over 200000 in interest on investment properties and would still get value of the sale. They seem happy for me to, a) continue paying current interest only option on investments or, b) sell investments and agree to pay the 105000 deficit there will be between sale price and debt owed, so we have to strongly consider giving up our home now, rather than later when it will be too late for us to start again. 

I agree that 1600 a month is adequate to live on but reality of investment properties is they cost a fortune, I had to complete an SFS giving a breakdown of all outgoings, I put down 90pm for maintenance and repairs for each of the investment properties, because the bank feels that is more than a reasonable amount, yet I have had 9 tenants in 6 years, Houses need substantial repairs and maintenance after each tenant and often no rent coming in for 2-3 months, 2 years ago a tenant who had provided good references which I checked moved in to my property, I saw him most weeks when he dropped off a cheque, nice young man,  he never missed a rent payment, after 4 months I went to do a check on the property, he had smashed the house to pieces, I am talking claw hammer through most walls, all doors, kitchen cudboards, even the wooden floor in the living room, he had slashed the sofa's all beds and pulled all the wardrobe doors off, seems he had used them for firewood, when I tried to claim off insurance I was told, I could not claim because I had invited him in to the house, I asked what Landlord insurance covered and they told me I was covered for the same as normal household insurance and also covered should the tenant have an accident in the house and claim off me, the repairs cost me 5000, the tenant was charged with vandalism but has now left the country without it ever going to court.  I also had the house empty and was paying full interest payments, hence loans and credit cards, point i'm making is a big portion of my 1600pm goes on investment properties, One of my current tenants has not paid me rent for three weeks because she lost her job, her FB page shows she was at Robbie Williams two weeks ago and Slane last week, if I evict her I will have to redecorate the house before letting it again. And chances are it will sit empty for 2-3 months.  Sorry for ranting on so much, I was hoping that someone would say offer the banks this or that, I just want my life back.


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