# meeting PTSB on Tuesday anyone got any advice



## richie33 (4 Feb 2012)

HI im in the usual situation with PTSB paying way over the odds,for a 3 bed semi and getting ripped right off.
Im meeting with the local branch on tuesday for the first time.We can just about to manage the repayments.
Has anyone got any tips or pointers,because im not used to this sort of chat.Do i go in all fired up or tame.
Thanks


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## Brendan Burgess (4 Feb 2012)

What are you trying to achieve by the meeting? 

If you are under pressure meeting your repayments, you should ask to go to interest only. Your contract may give you a right to a three month payment holiday, which you could also ask for.

You should also use the meeting to protest at the high SVR. 

I don't know if there is any point in going in all fired up, as the person you meet won't be responsible for setting policy. But you could ask her to formally respond to explain why you are being charged this rate.

In particular apply to be put on their new 3.7% rate.

Brendan


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## GiganticLamb (4 Feb 2012)

Quick question on this guys,it may be useful to the OP

By going Interest only does it effect you in any other way .ie Credit ratings/losing out on TRS?

Thanks in advance


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## Fiskar (5 Feb 2012)

OP, need more detail before we can definitively assist. 

Size of mortgage, lenght of time gone and remaining on loan, your age when mortgage will be technically paid off and what has brought on the payment issue.

If you are savy you can get 6 months interest free as i was offered but have not as yet taken up. This depends whether or not it helps you as my questions would lead to asking for a restructure if your age and lenght of loan remaing allow.


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## GiganticLamb (5 Feb 2012)

Fiskar said:


> OP, need more detail before we can definitively assist.
> 
> 
> 
> If you are savy you can get *6 months interest free *as i was offered but have not as yet taken up. This depends whether or not it helps you as my questions would lead to asking for a restructure if your age and lenght of loan remaing allow.



That sounds like a good idea,what way one one approach the bank to get that?


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## Fiskar (5 Feb 2012)

GiganticLamb said:


> That sounds like a good idea,what way one one approach the bank to get that?


 
Maybe I should clarify, it is 6 months interest only with no capital repayment. Interest payment is 45% of the monthly repayment.

Presented a business plan to offload a piece of debt that required interest only on 2 or 3 of the loans for 3 months. This debt would affect mortgage repayment if a rental lease folded.
Rejected offers on the lowest loans as they would not facilitate clearing the other debt. 
Was offered interest only on the largest loan for 6 months but have decided to wait before activating this until the fixed rate on that loan finishes in the next month or so.
Am weighting up other options but this is there and I may activate it in march.


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## richie33 (5 Feb 2012)

Hi,mortgage is over 35 years when we took out,29 years left,orginal loan amount 390000
Took a 3 month repayment break out about 3 years ago
Im at the end of a 6 month interest only repayment at the moment.
Payment went up to 2080 euro for a 3 bed semi before i took interest only.
It only reduced to 1680 euro.
Im not signing myself up for another 30 years of torture by this bank,something got to give.


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## Watcher (6 Feb 2012)

Explore every option available to you.
However read other posts and see that one poster at least had taken a holiday or interest only payment period and was penalised when then looking to move.

In essence yes. Lenders will look if you have taken a payment holiday and negatively view in assessment.


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## Brendan Burgess (6 Feb 2012)

Richie

Is there any prospect of you being able to move within the next 5 years? 

If you bought 6 years ago, I presume you are in deep negative equity. 

There is no switcher market at the moment and it is unlikely to return in the next 5 years for anyone who has more than 90% LTV. So I would ignore the impact on your credit record for the moment. 

The key thing which you and everyone else must do is to pile on the pressure on PTSB to reduce the rate. 

Brendan


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## kaza (6 Feb 2012)

I know you are saying you are not signing yourself up for another 30 years of torture by this bank but you effectively already did this when you signed the initial mortgage. Are you hoping for maybe them to write off some of the debt? What are you best case hoping for as an outcome?

I restructured with KBC recently on our investment property, I went in to discuss my options with them because my interest only period was ending and these were the options I was given (PTSB might give similar options):

*1. Extend interest only period*
With this option they would only do this on a 12 month basis. Which means we would have to reapply again in 12 months. Plus the term would decrease without the capital decreasing - meaning whenever we ended this agreement our total repayments would be even higher so for me this was not an option I wanted to go with if possible.
*2. Extend interest only period & pay fixed amount off capital every month*
This was a decent option for us which allowed us to at least put something off the capital and we would have gone with this option had they not extended our term.
*3. Go onto full re payments*
We could not afford this.
*4. Extend term of mortgage*
We went with this option as it made the repayments more manageable for us - still hard but manageable. We extended by 5 years and it brought our payments down by about €400 per month (mortgage €317,500, extended to 25 years).

Either way, whatever option you go with you will have to fill out a full financial statement and supply them with bank statements, etc., unless you go with returning to full repayments that is. So a bit of work involved.

PTSB standard variable rates are quiet a bit higher than other lenders at the moment and if they were not charging such rates your situtation would be very different - that is the most unfair thing about all of this! In my case my ppr mortgage is with PTSB over 35 years for approx. 300K and if I was with AIB on their standard variable rate I would be paying about €350 less per month! So talk to them about their rates and see can you push a rate change? They are offering 3.7% for new business customers at the moment - maybe they might move you onto that for even a year?? Although knowing PTSB this would be extremely hard sell for you.


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## richie33 (7 Feb 2012)

So i had the meeting today and it was a total waste of time.Arrived in the bank and met with a friendly enough women.

I told her that i can pay my mortgage at the AIB rate and its the extra 2% that PTSB are charging me is the reason that im on interest only and this is why im sitting in front of her today,but i might as well have been talking to the wall. 

I asked would the interest rate be coming down anytime soon she said no unless the ECB reduced the rate.I asked why are new customers getting a rate of 3.7% and im getting charged 5.19% ,she said she doesnt make the rates and moved on to another subject.
I asked for a lower rate and not a chance.
I was offered interest only or interest plus part capital.
I asked for an extension to the morgage but she said i couldnt as i had orginally taken out the mortgage over 35 yrs and thats the max.
No much light at the end of the tunnel for me.


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## Luternau (7 Feb 2012)

Sorry to read of your bad meeting. Sadly, this is pretty standard fare for PTSB. They just don't get the inequity of the two tier rate structure they have in place, nor the hardship that the higher rates are imposing on people, who can't   look elsewhere for better deals.
What you need to do now is sum up your recollection of the meeting and send it to PTSB. Please detail all the options you asked them to consider, what proposals you made re making payments and their response to these. I would then ask them for their final comment on the matter.
Should matters get worse for you, it will help that you have a record of this meeting.


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## kaza (8 Feb 2012)

richie33 said:


> I asked for an extension to the morgage but she said i couldnt as i had orginally taken out the mortgage over 35 yrs and thats the max.
> No much light at the end of the tunnel for me.


 
yes but 35 years is the max and you are at currently at 29 years - so how can she say you cannot extend the 29 years out by say 5 years because you originally got their max term?

With my mortgage extension with KBC the max was 25 years because it was rental property and I was down to 20 years - so they extended it by 5 years back out to the max to 25 years.

Now I know each bank will have different policies and the term will depend on your age aswell. But I have found numerous times with PTSB that one person will tell you one thing and another person will tell you something else. They seem the have very bad grasp of what their policies actually are from my experience - so I would ask for that in writing from them that they are not willing to extend the term out for you even though you are at 29 years and the max is 35 years - and see what they reply back with.


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## patq (8 Feb 2012)

> They just don't get the inequity of the two tier rate structure they have in place, nor the hardship that the higher rates are imposing on people, who can't look elsewhere for better deals.



I would guess that they completely get the inequity and hardships caused by the higher rates but don't care about that as a direct result of them knowing people cannot look elsewhere for better deals...


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