Hi am thinking of fingal but dont plan to be there for the 10 yrs and am slightly confused about what happens when you sell if for what you bought it for or less. fingal only do examples of when a profit has been made. also i phoned them and the person was of no help just said it was all[ in the information booklet
I don't know about Fingal, but in my experience (tallaght):
I pay 200,000, and the council have a theoretical discount of 100,000, giving a price of 300,000:
If the price drops below 300,000, then the council takes the first negative equity hit, of up to 100,000, so I can sell for 280,000 and clear my debts, walking away free, leaving the council with the 20,000 loss.
If the price drops below 200,000 when I sell, then I have the negative equity for anything below 200,000. So if I sell for 180,000, I owe 20,000, and the council have a 100,000 loss.
The council, when I agree a sale, sends a valuer in. The valuer estimates the worth of the place, and compares against the price I'm selling for. They can object to the sale price if it is ludicrous (let's say a reasonable market valuation is 250,000, and I want to sell it to my brother for 20,000).
From talking to them though, they know that market value for any AH has dropped to the floor, and won't kick up unless you are selling for an insanely low price.