Key Post "Why borrowers should not fear repossession courts"


Hi Delboy

To be honest, I don't really know.

I will document the actual repossessions granted later and see if we can figure them out.

For whatever reason, they are not paying and not showing up in court.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Hi Delboy

To be honest, I don't really know.

I will document the actual repossessions granted later and see if we can figure them out.

For whatever reason, they are not paying and not showing up in court.
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Could it be that the low hanging fruit are cases were the people have simply walked away from properties but not done a formal surrender? Like a horse running the course without its rider.
 

Dear god, not paid a penny in 6 years and probably living rent free or renting out the house and pocketing the cash at the same time, unbelievable, could only happen in Ireland. So this is why the 300,000 SVR brigade are paying the exorbitant rates so they can to subsidies these non-payers. Wouldn't it be enough to make you cry
 
I was on Saturday with Claire Byrne last Saturday and here is what David Hall said at around 35 minutes:

“Of 400 people who came to us last year with repossession proceedings against them from AIB, actively in court. Not one of them had engaged. 352 are still in their homes. 48 have lost their homes. They are now fully engaging.”

So about 12% of the people who had not been engaging who were actively in court have lost their home.

So, if there are 10,000 cases actively in court at the moment. If they all went to David Hall, only about 1,200 of them would lose their homes.

The problem is that very few of them will go to him or engage in any way. So they have to lose their homes.

Brendan
 
Is all the talk of thousands of Repossessions jut hot air...coming up next on Primetime, rte 1
 
Well, that was entertaining.
Coffey wiped the floor with Hall who couldn't handle some facts and figures. Good to see someone challenging him at last
 
I read the article in the Irish Times and must say that I wasn't surprised by the tone of the article. Brendan and Karl have been talking about selective defaults for a few years.

Karl Deeter actually responded to comments left by Irish Times readers and claimed in one comment that 'we tried to make this empirical'. I'm struggling to see how a few days in court could even approach 'empirical'.

What seems to have happened here is a classic example of The Einstellung Effect - whereby 3 men, who have spoken at length about the extent of selective default in the past went into court and looked for 'evidence' to support their 'hypothesis' and then tried to dress up their partial findings as empiricism.


Inspiring stuff.
 
They reviewed 300 cases...everything that appeared in the Courts on the days they were there. In different geographical locations.
They tabulated the results and thats that.

Now how that could be biased or dressed up is beyond me. In fact the results tie in to the crazily low numbers of repossessions we've been seeing for the past few years.

But your right....certain members of the commentariat, especially those that have been hogging the airwaves for the past few years, have come back with fairly predictable responses....all emotion, no facts
 

Hi epi

Why not get a clipboard and a couple of pens and visit your next hearing of the County Registrar's Court in your area?

I think you will be shocked at how what actually happens is so different from what is usually depicted.

You will be very "lucky" to find an actual case of where someone shows up in court and wants to keep their home and actually loses it. Neither Karl nor Séamus saw one. I saw two in Wicklow. One had made no payment since 2012 and the other had made no payment since 2011.

In over 300 cases we have yet to find even one case of someone showing up in court, paying something, no matter how small, regularly, and losing their home.

I suspect you will find this one off , anonymous story, with no data provided, and full of holes, far more persuasive:

http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifest...-of-being-wrecked-by-repossession-323946.html

Brendan
 
OK, let’s start again.

I am in arrears, lots of arrears!

As Brendan advises, I engage with my lender and pay whatever I can. The lender, for one reason or another, initiates legal proceedings.

I go to court, which according to Brendan will not issue an order of possession, because I have engaged and because I am paying as much as I can.

So what is the point in the lender bringing me to court?
 
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Hi Sop

Good question.

The Central Bank has issued targets for "sustainable solutions" to the banks.

Where a mortgage is not sustainable, they have to issue a legal letter, even where the borrower is paying something every month.

They issue legal proceedings, but adjourn them.

In over 300 cases, we did not see any cases of people who were paying regularly. So we can only presume that they were in the huge number of adjourned proceedings.

Brendan
 
Hi Brendan

Your article in the Irish Times appropriately enough appeared in the Opinion Section. I thought that Karl Deeter's comment re. your 'clipboard and a couple of pens' experiment amounted to something approaching 'empirical' made a mockery of what true reseach entails.

It seems obvious to me that you went looking for evidence to back up what you've been saying all along. I was particularly surprised with an economist appearing on Prime Time to stand over his 'research'. After all, what were your actual findings - based on the 68 cases (sample size) that weren't adjourned?

In research, one needs to be very certain that one's findings are as exhaustive as possible before one makes conclusions - especially if that 'conclusion' appears in a national newspaper under the headline 'Why borrowers should not fear repossession courts'.

I remember being warned in UCD many years ago to leave all of our preconceptions at the door if we didn't want our initial bias / opinion to contaminate the research we were involved in.

Seamus Coffey spoke of certain people who hadn't paid anything in years and suggested that non payment of anything amounted to a selective default. Of course, as the 'research' was superficial in the extreme he never found out why these people stopped paying anything. These people may have stopped when the bank told them they were taking back the home.

The idea that the bank will not attempt to repossess your home if you pay something is not based on fact and, as such, is a very dangerous and factually inaccurate message to be disseminating.

In our case, we paid 40% of our mortage for the 12 months of the MARP period and at the end of that period the bank informed us that we either sell the house on their behalf or that they would repossess it through the courts. As you know, we sold it on their behalf and then they looked for us to pay back the shortfall amount plus interest over a 27.4 year period. I'm a pragmatist and successfully petitioned for UK bankruptcy. I wasn't expecting any favours from the bank and acted accordingly. I was fortunate in that we didn't have children and therefore the move to the UK wasn't as bad as it could have been.

In conclusion, the banks are moving to take back people's houses, even if they are paying something. Furthermore, an adjournment does not equate to a case being struck out.
 
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epicaricacy said:
It seems obvious to me that you went looking for evidence to back up what you've been saying all along.
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epi

As I have already suggested, why don't you do your own research? Head into your local Circuit Court and see for yourself.

"the banks are moving to take back people's houses, even if they are paying something."

This does not conflict at all with what we are saying. I know that the banks are classifying some mortgages as unsustainable when they should not be doing so. I have lobbied for a change on policy on this matter. I have been banging my head on a brick wall for a definition f sustainable mortgage.


We are reporting what we saw in the Circuit Courts. These cases are not appearing on our research. Maybe that is because most people do what you did and sell their house voluntarily.

Brendan
 
Brendan

I'm struggling to see what 'findings' would emerge from such a venture besides confirming that adjournments happen frequently in court rooms. Besides, Seamus Coffey and I live in the same city.

I'm not disputing the veracity of the contents of the above table. However, I'm disputing the 'conclusions' and inferences that the article writer(s) have made from such a small sample size (68 non adjournments) and from the fact that the 'evidence' was so sketchy.

In addition, I'm suggesting that The Einstellung Effect is at play here - whereby your prior expressed beliefs / opinions regarding the behaviours of a certain percentage of defaulters compromised your ability to see any other possibilty in your 'findings'. In other words, the integrity of the research was doomed by an initial bias.

Delboy's impassioned defence of your research, coupled with his insistence that the slow pace of repossessions is the number one cause of high SVRs is another example of The Einstellung Effect at play.
 
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Do you think the bank told them in 2009 that they were taking back the home which was when the last payment was made in the cases referred to? Of course, we don't know why these people stopped paying anything. We just know that they have paid nothing since 2009.

epicaricacy said:
The idea that the bank will not attempt to repossess your home if you pay something is not based on fact and, as such, is a very dangerous and factually inaccurate message to be disseminating.
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That is not what is being said. This is not about the actions or decisions taken by the banks; it is about what happens in court. Of course the banks are seeking possession orders - that is why there are thousands of cases before the courts. The point is that if someone is making regular payments the County Registrar is unlikely to grant the possession order that is being sought by the banks. The banks can attempt what they want.

What is being observed are the decisions of the County Registrars. At the moment possession orders are not being granted against people making regular payments. This may change and probably will if the payments are insufficient to service the mortgage (though there does not appear to be an standard definition of what the minimum payment needs to be). I would suggest that a payment covering the interest (or close to covering the interest with a high probability of increasing to do so over the medium term) would be sufficient. If some government assistance is required to help people cover the interest that should be considered too - we do it for renters.

I think a distinction needs to be made between what the banks are doing/not doing and what actually happens in court. What is being observed is what happens in court. Of course there are unobservables driving what is happening in courts but part of that may be down significant misperceptions about what is reported as happening. The courts are not open season on borrowers and people who genuinely do not want their property repossessed should make regular payments and show up in court. They will not have possession orders granted against them. This may change and if it does we will report that.
 
This is quite a serious issue and the impact of Court action, be it consistent or limited to 1/2 Courts will be of considerable interest to those in arrears and in fear of re-possession.
I have some sympathy with Epi's contention that the sample number of cases from which the conclusions were drawn is small and the nature of the research may be biased (no reflection on anyone!).
Surely it would be fairly simple to conduct a more detailed and higher sample of cases over a determined period and range of Courts to establish whether there is a consistent trend here?

While having no sympathy whatsoever for the strategic defaulter I do sympathise with the borrowers who are trying their best to pay and are informed that the loan is being called in and repossession commenced due to "unsustainability". In the case of my own bank sustainability is assessed as being able to meet payments at a minimum annual level of 5% of the outstanding balance. This may not be consistent across the banks.
 

From what you say, it seems to me that the current position is a waste of the time and resources of all concerned.

On the one hand a lender concludes that a loan is “unsustainable” while on the other hand the registrar is not concerned with sustainability but rather with regular payments.

One is looking at red; the other at green.
 
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