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AIB HAS ISSUED legal letters to some 2,500 home owners in arrears in the last six months, the Oireachtas finance committee has heard.
Brendan O’Connor, head of AIB’s financial solutions group, said that a number of these cases have or will change to sustainable solutions for repayment and, as such, will avoid repossession.
The bank repossessed 58 homes in 2013, up from 20 in 2012.
In total, the bank is involved in more than 9,000 legal or potential legal cases with mortgage holders. Typically, half of all those threatened with legal action engage with the bank to restructure their loans, while a further ten per cent do so once the legal process has been entered.
O’Connor said that the average period of mortgage arrears of the homeowners in question was two years.
During the same six-month period, 200 legal letters were sent to buy-to-let borrowers. O’Connor said that some 1,000 buy-to-lets are currently in receivership and he expects 800 of these houses to be repossessed.
Fine Gael TD Kieran O’Donnell accused the bank of adopting a “very aggressive attitude on the buy-to-lets”.
He added that some 50 per cent of the bank’s mortgage debt restructuring was a result of legal proceedings and said “ye wouldn’t come within an ass’s roar of targets” without that approach.
AIB Group CEO David Duffy said that the legal letters were “merely a default, an outcome of non-engagement” and jokingly questioned O’Donnell’s choice of language.
(David Duffy. Pic: Screengrab/Oireachtas TV)
Duffy said that AIB was dealing with a number of legacy issues and hoped to deliver the majority of mortgage restructuring by the end of 2014.
He stated that the bank had been “innovative” in its approach to the restructuring process as they have encouraged customers to talk to housing advocacy groups for advice.
He added that he didn’t expect the upcoming ECB stress tests to show that AIB required more State capital as it has “buffers in excess of €4 billion”.
Duffy said that SME arrears were “in monetary terms … by far the larger proportion of AIB’s troubled loan book”.
“The issue of SME arrears receives a disproportionately small level of coverage in the national debate despite the fact that its resolution is critical for the long-term sustainable growth of the country … I am pleased to say that we have made very strong progress in resolving our SME arrears book and are seeing much higher rates of customer engagement relative to our mortgage book,” Duffy said.
He added: “We are confident that we will have completed the substantial majority of the SME restructures over the next 12 months.”
O’Connor admitted that no solutions had been agreed in terms of a mortgage-to-rent scheme, but said that 300 potential cases were being discussed, with 20-30 in the late stages of agreement.
He noted that the process was “very, very complex … at the moment, it’s just not functioning”. He added that the about 600 of the 1,100 customers offered split mortgages were receive debt write-down of some sort.
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Has to include oil & gas or else they’re peeing against the wind. Make it meaningful & hit him where it hurts
Half a billion euro to arm Ukraine but 35 billion to Putin??? Yeah, that’ll sort it….
We need to provide Ukraine with the means to not only defend itself but push the invader completely out of its territory. That includes tanks, advanced anti-air missiles, training for Ukrainian pilots for western jet fighters and supply of F-16′s to let them reclaim their skies.
This war will be a litmus test for how far Putin can test the rest of Europe and we need to make sure Ukraine has the ability to make the war politically, tactially and economically unviable for Putin.
@Seán Ó Briain: do u hear yourself talking f n Sxite ..yeah yeah let’s give them more guns more bombs more planes …you sound like that fn guy riding the atomic bomb down to ground zero .they would have been better off putting down there guns and doing nothing did never hear of Gandi and his teachings
@Michael Nolan: So once the Russians have already invaded your answer is to bend over?
I can just imagine you welcoming your new overlords while snitching on your neighbours.
@Seán Ó Briain: takes several years to train to fly an F-16. It’s more complicated than a bike.
@Will: well let’s see eh I’d rather be alive
Have a look at this
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLXUTKwA/
@Sean Whelan: 100% right.
I think it’s time for a general boycott on German goods, until they stop dragging their feet. Germany has a big responsibility for allowing this to happen.
- They blocked countries from supplying Ukraine with weapons
- They blocked the SWIFT ban (And watered it down)
- They blocked tougher sanctions
- They continue to block sanctions on energy imports.
Germany is Russia’s most powerful political ally in the EU.
Is this a discussion on the sixth round of sanctions on Russia or Europe?
It looks like it is not doing much to stop war on Ukraine and inflicting a lot of financial pain for all the EU countries…
Russian Oil Continues To Flow To India And China
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Russian-Oil-Continues-To-Flow-To-India-And-China.html
have your say