Category: Banking Crisis

Habemus Mortgage Arrears Plan

Today the Irish government and Central Bank together announced a new set of plans to tackle the mortgage arrears crisis. The new plan reverses two policy decisions from the recent past that are now acknowledged to be flawed: the 2009 Land Conveyancing Act, and the Financial Regulator’s 2011 Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears. The plan also imposes ambitious targets on all Irish domestic banks, first, to offer each mortgage holder in arrears a specific proposal for resolving their arrears problem, and second (during 2014) to ensure that a majority of these individual plans are implemented or suitably modified.

The targets seem fairly aggressive, with over 55,000 individual arrears resolution plans to be offered by December of this year. It is not clear when the new process can begin since the legislative changes to the 2009 Land Conveyancing Act may not be ready for several months (today they were promised to be completed by the summer recess of the Dail).

Key documents:

Irish Central Bank press announcement:

Mortgage arrears resolution targets:

Consultation on changes to the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears:

The Pro-Note Deal: Monday Analysis

Wolfgang Munchau (crediting Karl Whelan) here.

Donal Donovan here.

John McManus here.

Special issue on the politics of adjustment

The current issue of Intereconomics has a series of stories about the politics of adjustment in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Niamh Hardiman and Aidan Regan discuss the Irish case. It’s well worth reading all of the cases for those of us engaged in the current debate, to see similarities and differences in the approaches. It’ll help those of us (read: me) engaged in teaching this stuff as well.

Niamh will also be speaking on this theme at tomorrow’s Irish Economy conference.

Breaking the link between banks and sovereigns (or not)

The FT has a sobering report here.

Fitch Report: Property Markets Remain Soft, Irish Borrowers on Strike

Namawinelake has a link to the new Fitch report on global property markets, including Ireland which gets considerable attention in the report. The Irish picture is mixed with some positive signals (affordability ratios have become more normal) and other negative signals (continued bank distress limits future mortgage lending).

Fitch also highlights the unusual behaviour of Irish arrears, and connects this to the Irish policy framework.

“Irish Borrowers on Strike: Despite economic stabilisation, Irish arrears continue to trend upwards. Fitch believes this to be partially driven by policy framework changes. Lenders are constrained from large-scale repossessions, dis-incentivising borrowers from paying their mortgages. In addition, borrowers in arrears are also likely to benefit from significant debt write-offs when personal insolvency legislation becomes effective.”