Caroline Lennon Nally Posterwoman for mortgage arrears

Brendan Burgess

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I have copied this from this thread "Frotline Programme on mortgage arrears and negative equity"
and edited out comments not related to Caroline Lennon Nally


The public servant who has not paid her mortgage since December 2010. She was in her early fifties and put all her savings into a house. She could not get the bank to agree anything and her income has reduced as a "professional public servant". So her response has been to put €1,000 a month into a separate bank account until the bank agrees. Every option that the bank discusses involves repossession. It is very unusual for a bank to suggest repossession, so we were not getting the full story. Mind you, if she has not paid anything towards her mortgage for 10 months, then there should be a fast-track court procedure to repossess her house.
 
The "professional" civil servant really got on my nerves. Just because a "substantial" amount of her savings into doing up her house (which I'm sure she bored her dinner guests with) and her income (which I'm sure is still pretty decent) has been reduced, she has decided not to pay her mortgage. If her salary had not been cut but instead interest rates went up, would she have stopped paying her mortgage also? It's people like her IMO who are not helping those in real need here....if someone like her were to get a writeoff then every Tom, Dick and Harry would stop repaying their mortgage.
 
The Ghoul said:
I'm normally pro public servant and defend what I see as attacks on public servants' pay, pensions and conditions by the gutter media. But that woman did the public service no favours.
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I agree fully with you. In fact, a conspiracy theorist might think that she had been put up by those opposed to debt forgiveness to give the perfect example of why it should not be entertained.

But she is not typical of the public service and don't allow her to influence your attitudes.
 

What job does this woman do in the public service? This €50 per week in clothes/grooming requirement does not sound like a normal p.s. job, even for higher management. It's so incredible and false looking that I'm beginning to wonder if this is a real person, or just an actress playing a part to get a rise from the audience?
 
Brendan Burgess said:
The case studies were simply not probed at all .
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Public servant - I suspect this is a case of having a very nice/saleable house. People who invested a lot of effort & savings into their home need to face up to the fact that all their effort and money has been wiped out. If they're fortunate enough to walk away to rebuild their lives with a mangeable debt, then they should suck it up.
 
The public servant was on the News at One today on RTE.

She is a mother of 1.

She appears to be Caroline Lennon-Nally a Resource Officer with the HSE. (They also called her Celine)

She bought her house(in Kilkenny I think?) for €320k in 2007 and has been paying interest only since then ( €50k in interest since 2007)

She has invested a lot in the house.

She is involved in something called "Irish Homeowners Unite"
 

Could be this lady
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/caroline-lennon-nally/14/906/653

The bit I heard was even less coherent than on frontline
 

Home owners unite on Facebook;
"
This page is dedicated to all those Irish homeowners who are struggling to pay their mortgage and at risk of losing their home.
Description
"If one family defaults on its mortgage, they are pariahs: if 200,000 default they are a powerful political constituency. There is no shame in admitting that you too were mauled by the Celtic Tiger after being conned into taking out an unaffordable mortgage, when everyone around you is admitting the same".

She was getting lots of compliments on her page.
 
Brendan might be interested in viewing this;
http://www.irishexaminer.ie/ireland/mortgage-plan-vague-and-lacking-in-urgency-170517.html

I’D RATHER BURN MY HOME THAN RENT IT OFF THE BANKS’
Struggling mortgage holder hits out at report - By Claire O’Sullivan

CAROLINE LENNON-NALLY has been in mortgage arrears for the past 10 months, and is one of the thousands of distressed mortgage holders Declan Keane refers to in his report into the mortgage debt crisis, which was published yesterday.

But the idea of becoming a social housing tenant in "her own home", as the report recommends, sends her into a tailspin.

She said she has already paid about €50,000 in mortgage repayments to her bank, a size-able deposit when she bought her home, as well as stamp duty.

"I’d rather burn it than rent it back off the banks," she said. "I have put huge amounts of my own money into this house. I worked my whole life for it. Anyway, it’s only worth about €200,000 to them now."

She paid €385,000 for the property, but her bill came to €412,000 by the time she had paid stamp duty and legal fees.

Stuck in a 5.5% fixed-rate mortgage, negotiated in 2007 when she bought her home, she found it increasingly difficult to meet her €1,470 mortgage repayments, which were fixed at interest only until 2012.

Last winter, Caroline realised she could only afford to pay €1,000 per month and told her bank, which said she would have to pay €8,000 to break the agreement. For the past 10 months she has paid €1,000 into an account every month to prove she is willing to pay — but not on their terms.

Caroline has founded Irish Home Owners United, which will meet legal group New Beginning and the Defend Our Homes alliance later this week.

- Irish Homeowners Unite can be contacted through Facebook at http://exa.mn/homes.

Picture: Caroline Lennon-Nally has made mortgage repayments of €50,000 to her bank since she bought it for €385,000 in 2007. She found it increasingly difficult to meet her €1,470 monthly mortgage repayments and offered to pay €1,000 instead. Picture: Robert Redmon
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, October 13, 2011


Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.ie/ireland...-lacking-in-urgency-170517.html#ixzz1aei9c6R1
 
thedaras said:
Stuck in a 5.5% fixed-rate mortgage, negotiated in 2007 when she bought her home, she found it increasingly difficult to meet her €1,470 mortgage repayments, which were fixed at interest only until 2012.
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Was she under the impression that she could afford the fixed rate for five years?
What changed since 2007 to make it unsustainable for her to pay this?

One major issue seems to be the fixed rate mortgage.
The other seems to be this figure of €8,000.
 

Finally more detail on the professional civil servants case.

What changed since 2007? Everything. Austerity-lots of it for everyone. For public servants this meant penion levy, income levy and USC.
As the article last says she got into trouble last winter and is borne out by stating she is in arrears for 10mths.
Was she stress tested-I would say she was and at @ 5% based on her income, which in 2007, or even 2006 when her application could have been made, would have been expected to remain constant or increase (based on historical data of Public Servant pay). If it could be paid in year one-it shoul dbe payable for the five years-the most expensive years of any mortgage. So she was given the money. Then 3 years in everthing changed for her financially.
Not in defense of her stance, but if she is in genuine difficulties, she should be able to restructure her mortgage, just like everyone else. But the bank says there is a redemption on the remaining fixed rate contract to pay first. On the face of it this seems unfair. If she had 8k -would she want to restructure?
However, I wish she would stop this Professional Public Servant talk- Public Servant seems adequate detail. And as for the €50 per week on clothes and grooming, perhaps she should cut this back in line with the cutback in salary and offer the savings to the bank. I doubt she would loose her job over poor grooming!
 
€50 in clothes and grooming PER WEEK?!
€2,500 per year on this when she can't pay the mortgage?

I agree that she may have standards to maintain in terms of her deportment and personal appearance.
But I'm beginning to form the opinion that centres more about the extra-over due to the fixed rate, which would gall me too.

Is it possible to determine what this persons likely salary range is, Luternau, to give some better background to the dilemma - is that being too prying?
 
It's quite easy to see how she could be €500 pm down from 2007 with pay cuts, tax hikes, pension levy, etc.

She probably should have allowed herself a buffer when taking out the mortgage, but with a fixed rate and a steady job, she would have been seen as a very safe bet.

No point in dwelling on whose fault it is that her disposable income has taken a hit (arguments will range from casino capitalism overseen inept policticians to benchmarking leaving public servants on unrealistic salaries to unsustainably low taxation rates during the boom to overly generous public service pensions that must now be paid for by incumbants).

Is there a chance of her taking in a lodger under the rent a room scheme to close the gap in repayment ability I wonder?
 
[Original post removed]

Moderators' note

I think what needs to be said about Caroline Lennon Nally has been said. If someone has some new information to add on her case,by all means please do add it. But please stop discussing her make-up bill, her civil service salary etc.

Thanks

Brendan
 
DerKaiser said:
Is there a chance of her taking in a lodger under the rent a room scheme to close the gap in repayment ability I wonder?
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But the spare rooms are probably over flowing with clothes... (Awful to suggest, but I have seen it else where!)
 

Yep-thats what she said. Said it was needed for her job. ???? If thats so, then it should be a deductable expense?

I would love to know her position-then its easy to get the salary range. Based on what she was approved for, guessing her age , and assuming no mortgage would be advanced beyond age 65/70. So at 5 times earnings, and at a guess, based on her saying she was 'professional' between 70 and 85k.
 
Luternau said:
But the spare rooms are probably over flowing with clothes... (Awful to suggest, but I have seen it else where!)
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Classic - I've a good mental image of the poor lodger pinned into a corner by a mountain of clothes and "grooming" essentials!
 

Thanks Luternau.

This is what I'm thinking, that its around a fifth of her gross salary, which might appear to suggest on the face of it she should be able to pay it and pay her bills.

I don't think we've heard the last of this one.
 
DerKaiser said:
It's quite easy to see how she could be €500 pm down from 2007 with pay cuts, tax hikes, pension levy, etc.

Is there a chance of her taking in a lodger under the rent a room scheme to close the gap in repayment ability I wonder?
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A 20% cut in costs affects the bottom line more than a 20% rise in gross profits.

Anyone in this position would need to look at both and, with reference to your other comment, perhaps sell a few clothes to make space for the lodger.

Unless it turns out that he's a cross dresser, in which case there might be a rental option there too
 
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