A (retired) banker's view of why some people can't pay their mortgages

I've come late to this thread, but I have read every post and to be honest many questions I had were answered. I've had a parallel life to Isle-of-Man though at the other end. I started working as a junior public servant in 1970 and retired as a junior public servant in early 2018. While I had a fairly varied existence I was always aware that someday I would have to acquire a mortgage.
1. Irish Permanent, EBS, AIB, BoI informed me that I would have first to build up a kind of Credit Rating by weekly savings.
2. The future Mrs Lep and Lep worked all the overtime that could be sourced.
3. I should point out that the Blushing Bride back then was seldom older than 26 and marriages were often blessed by God to 21 year olds and younger. Those were the days where the bride and mother-of-the-bride cried themselves through the Wedding Mass.
4. Two years into mortgage hunting (exhausted from overtime and scrimping) I was informed I had a snowball's chance in hell of buying a house.
5. I took on a part-time job. Mrs Lep typed "on the side" for anybody who needed typing.
6. We amassed the equivalent of what was then a fortune of banked cash.
7. Various building society managers advertised on television to "drop in for a chat" some banks had a queue for mortgages. We now qualified to be in the queue for a mortgage from one of the banks. The queue would be for about a year. Inflation was rampant; house prices were racing ahead.
8. Eventually, the bank wanted our P60's, details of everything else financial and could give us a mortgage of two thirds the price of the house. But, it would make available to us a Bridging Load while we were waiting for our mortgage to be approved. The mortgage was to be 20 years duration but the Bridging effectively made it 21 years.
9. The house had to be painted in its entirety on the inside and outside. If we took in a paying guest the lending rate would be higher.

We had to jump through more hoops than a circus dog. The interest rate went up and up and believe it or not it reached 19.75% for some time. There were times when literally my monthly mortgage payment was more than I was earning. I kid you not.

Jump to 2004/2005 the same bank wanted me to remortgage, buy a foreign pad, update both our cars. Forget about P60's. Forget about all other financial matters. While I am bereft of financial savvy we didn't update our cars as I believe buying a new car is the equivalent of flushing hard cash down the toilet. We did buy a holiday home abroad though (well covered in other threads by me). It was not a good investment, but now is appearing to have been not as bad as it appeared five years ago.

Isle-of-Man, tells a good story. Stories like his and mine will appear time and time again. Great reading here and in Sunday newspapers, but the criminal bank managers and assistant bank managers were never taken to task. They are walking around now retired, loaded, smug and with an air of "we did great." The proceeds of crime are being taken from crime-gang people but nobody other than a few here are baying for the former bank "ve vas just carrying out orders" people to answer for their crimes.
 

No offence but a bit rich coming from a civil servant. Can you tell me how many junior/mid/senior servants have paid with their jobs or 'made answer for their crimes' considering some of the incompetence we have seen within the civil service over the past few decades. Oh wait, it is always the Ministers fault. We were just following government policy. Ve Vas just carrying out orders. Condemning individual bankers at manager and assistant manager level for being more concerned about individual performance targets than the health of the financial system is ridiculous. Just like condemning civil servants for things like buying an piece of agricultural land in North Dublin for nearly €30m to build a super prison when the land now is worth about €3m. I don't remember any civil servants being publically vilified for decisions like that. Maybe consider that next time you are throwing labels like 'criminal' around. Banking culture and ethical behaviour were found to be severely deficient but lack of accountability is not exclusive to the banking sectors.
 
Lever that’s gas they would charge you a higher rate if you had a tenant.
 

Patrick Neary - a civil servant - certainly didn't pay with his. In fact, we paid him a golden handshake of 630K and an annual pension of 143K.
It is illuminating to re-read the transcripts of the Dail banking inquiry when seeking to apportion blame...
 
Leper said:
We had to jump through more hoops than a circus dog. The interest rate went up and up and believe it or not it reached 19.75% for some time.
Click to expand...

This takes me back to our first attempt to acquire a mortgage in the 70s, when we practically had to prove we didn't need one in order to obtain one.
 
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