"permanent tsb to write off some unsustainable debt"

[Brendan Burgess]

I attended the permanent tsb AGM yesterday and questioned the chairman and chief executive about how much debt they had written off on home loans. They have made provisions for €1.2 billion but seem to have written off only €200k.

Jeremy Masding said that they had written off debt, but refused to tell me how much or in how many cases. I asked what the incentive was for someone to agree to a voluntary sale, but I didn't get an answer.

The Examiner reports on the meeting here

Permanent TSB to write off some unsustainable debt



The Irish Times here:

[FONT=&quot]Permanent TSB chief says mortgage debt write offs will be applied in some cases [/FONT]



These headlines seem more optimistic than I took from the meeting.

I can't understand why it's commercially senstive information. I will ask the Central Bank to tell all lenders to disclose this information.

 

[Bronte]

I can't understand why it's commercially senstive information. I will ask the Central Bank to tell all lenders to disclose this information.

It was mentioned on Newstalk this morning, particularly the debt writedown part.

They are just using the 'commercially sensitive' tag to try and continue to pretend that it doesn't happen ever. And with their confidentiality documents it's being kept a closely guarded secret, we discussed it yesterday on here in relation to bankruptcy - Poster Jim Stafford mentioned that he knows of one bank that is doing debt writedowns but he wouldn't say who. Maybe it's PTSB, maybe not.

 

[TRS30]

I guess they are worried that once it is openly admitted that the flood gates will open and everyone who is in any kind of mortgage difficulties will looking to get a write down.

 

[bugler]

About 2,500 buy-to-lets have so far been dealt with by the bank. In 1,700 of these cases, it has managed to identify the “right party contact” who is responsible for repaying the mortgage. This suggests that there are 800 cases where there is doubt about who is responsible for repaying the loan.

This is a rather strange passage. What kind of bank doesn't know who owes them money? And is knowing who owes you money to be held up as some kind of achievement?

 

[Brendan Burgess]

I was a bit surprised by this as well. But I think it's probably to do with joint accounts. In theory, they are jointly and severally liable, but that is not much good if they are not paying.

Brendan