Re: Why do people expect to be let off Negative Equity? You made a promise, stick to
It's a pity that everyone involved cannot take the most simplistic view to this problem and fix it in everyones interests.
Any solution going forward will ALWAYS favour the banks at the cost of the consumer. That is sad way of the world.
The banks took the risks, not the consumers in my opinion. They were and still are the guides and protectors of our money and should take more responsibility. The 'you borrow, you pay' is not taking everything into account. People borrowed because they could or because they felt that they could afford it. Both of these factors were 100% in the banks control. The banks should have run better stress tests (to include things like falling prices and unemployment) and should have prevented people from borrowing, stating clearly that they could not afford any blip in the future, whether the consumer liked it or not. Thats responsibility, thats being the guide.
But instead of this they threw out their money for profit, lending with no regard for anyones future, not even their own. They took at every opportunity, sold and mislead consumers with complicated financial products and generally abused their position.
Now when this current situation has occurred, they are unloading their debts for reduced capital amounts to reflect market values but here is the thing, their borrowing obligation for your house has decreased by upwards of 30%, but they want you to still pay back the 100% PLUS more interest as they are now increasing the cost of that borrowing to you! The This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language is falling out of everything and the banks now think that you have more capacity to pay back your loan rather than considerably less. That is completely messed up in my opinion.
So we need to come out of the forest, and take a look at the whole picture. The banks have profited enough and in time they will recover, in the long term, whats their rush.
The banks should go through their mortgage loan books, apply the same reduction to each loan as they have been given by NAMA, and then reduce the capital amount owing, esentially putting everyone owing 100% of the current market value of their home. The payments continue at a lower rate as a result. Once this is done, if you cant afford it, then tough luck, you lose your home. This would mean that the banks wuld have no problems with non-payment and everyone would feel that they were taken into account in this process.
Isn't it about time we started acting like human beings, and stop looking at everything in the world through financial glasses. With a strong conviction to change, the banks can still be super profitable without peoples lives being ruined.
And yes, it is this simple, all it takes is a short and temporary blow the financial sector, who will recover, similar to the major blow we as consumers and tax payers have been feeling for last 18 months or so.
*update*
And of course I should mention that in order to prevent any of it happening again, if you accept the reduction on your home, well then you wont be looking for a tradeup in the next 5 years would you as it would be part of the agreement. An agreement that revalues your home and helps you out, not releases you from a debt burden that you want to replace with more debt ;-)