"Storm over bank's 'dirty tricks' on tracker loans"

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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Interesting story in today's Indo.

BANK of Ireland has been carrying out research on ways to get homeowners to give up their valuable tracker mortgages.

The revelation has provoked a storm of protest, with the bank being accused of "dirty tricks".
Central Bank rules mean banks are supposed to act in the best interests of consumers, but a Government TD and consumer groups claim the bank is trying to find ways to trick people out of trackers.
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While this reseach relates to home owners only, they have been using dirty tricks to get property investors off cheap trackers.
Key Post BoI want me to give up tracker on RIP to extend interest onlyhttp://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=176675

Brendan
 
BANK of Ireland has been carrying out research on ways to get homeowners to give up their valuable tracker mortgages.
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Very simple. Make us an offer! As previous threads/posts on the subject on AAM over the past few years have indicated, there are plenty waiting on a deal. In the absence of which - they will simply do something else with their money - and go the full term with the tracker mortgage, month by month.
 
At the risk of being a 'spoiler', should resources not be directed towards those who are in most need? That is, if any write downs are given the first priority should be to those who are really struggling, genuinely trying to make repayments and ends meet, but unfortunately cannot. Try to help them.

If the Banks do give a write down to those with cash available who are waiting for a deal, tell me how that benefits anyone really bar the mortgagee? It might allow the Banks to reduce their trackers but someone has to pay for the write downs. Probably the taxpayer either through money already committed or to be committed in the future if needs arise.

If taxpayers money is used, and I hate that it is or has been, at least direct it towards those who are in most need of help and not the 'opportunists'!
 
Gerard123 said:
If the Banks do give a write down to those with cash available who are waiting for a deal, tell me how that benefits anyone really bar the mortgagee?

If taxpayers money is used, and I hate that it is or has been, at least direct it towards those who are in most need of help and not the 'opportunists'!
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To put it in simple terms if Banks were behaving as a business they would have offered incentives to get people off trackers long ago. Currently there are a huge amount of Tracker mortgages at less than 2% and the Banks are paying more than that for the money. To put it simply no business would continue to pay more continuously for a product than they are getting for it. They might use a product as a loss leader for a while but not continuously.
The Banks need to do a deal that saves them money and attracts people to change from a tracker or pay it off.
It is a totally different issue to sorting out the other mortgage problems.
 
Gerard123 said:
If taxpayers money is used, and I hate that it is or has been, at least direct it towards those who are in most need of help and not the 'opportunists'!
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Opportunists?
The chances are that those who ended up with good tracker rates bought in or around the height of the boom. Therefore, it is a silver lining in an otherwise negative scenario - so forgive me - and others - for being 'opportunists'!

In any event, I doubt very much that it will come to pass. I've made other plans for my savings and have made firm plans in that respect on the basis that I don't see a deal coming anytime soon.

In recent years, loan books have been sold on at X cents in the euro i.e. massively discounted. They are prepared to do that at institutional level but when it comes to joe public, there seems to be a reluctance to engage in a deal that surely would make sense for both parties. Is it an unwritten rule that your ordinary joe can't possibly be allowed to catch a break?
 
The figures you see in the papers for institutions selling loans to each other for X cents to the euro is an average valuation that one was willing to pay for the entire loan book - both good and bad.

If they were to offer a deal to Joe Public, the only ones in a position to take that deal are those in the best position financially. The remaining loans on their books would then be worth even less.

I do agree that banks should be able to offer deals to Joe Public, just not the same type of deals as you see in the press.
 
In regrad to the cost of tracker mortgages for the banks it might be worth noting the current Euribor Inter bank rates are
3 months .21%
6 months .326%
12 months .53%
1 week .082% Yes less than ECB of .75% I would not expect a deal very soon only the continued efforts to get as many off the tracker margins as possible without having to pay for it. In short dirty tricks cost less than deals.Padraic
 
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