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A FEW CHANGES have been made to the government’s mortgage-to-rent scheme, which allows homeowners to sell their home and rent it out in order to clear their debt.
Changes introduced by Housing Minister Simon Coveney will allow private companies to buy the properties, clear the debt of the home-owner and offer a 20-year lease.
In short, it allows people to sell their homes to get rid of their debt, but to continue to live in the same place (with a private company as your landlord and the government as a middleman).
Other changes include making the scheme’s requirements more flexible for those who are eligible. Of the 3,600 people who have applied for the scheme, only 217 were able to avail.
Coveney said he want to give mortgage-to-rent scheme “a shot in the arm by testing alternative funding models that can deliver volume”.
Reaction
Free Legal Advice Centres cautiously welcomed the changes, saying that the Mortgage-to-Rent scheme was only one limited method of preventing the potential wave of homelessness from repossession of family homes.
“Although a buy-back option in the future may exist, the reality is that most beneficiaries of the scheme will remain tenants,” Senior Policy Analyst Paul Joyce said.
He said that mortgage write-downs are largely unused, despite being “a key mechanism” that potentially allows for the write-down of the debt on the family home to its current market value, allowing the borrower to remain the owner.
Councillor Éilis Ryan of the Workers’ Party,meanwhile, called the plan “financial madness”:
“The Workers’ Party are proposing a scheme in which a state company is established to purchase these same homes, and rent them back to the former mortgage holders with a secure lifetime lease, and at a sustainable rent to the state.
“In this way, the state increases its stock of decent public housing, and receives a revenue stream in the form of a reasonable rent.”
Why bring in a private investor who will inevitably add a profit margin into the rent at which he leases the properties to the state?
It was announced earlier this year that New Beginning – the debt agency founded by barrister Ross Maguire – plans to buy thousands of homes with mortgages owned by Pepper, a firm that services loans for Irish banks and vulture funds.
The sale is scheduled to go through this year, and is something that is envisaged to be the first of many such transactions in the pipeline, whereby homes could be bought and used as social housing and rented out to the once-owner of the property.
It’s expected that the updated scheme will be up and running by the end of the year.
With reporting from Christina Finn
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I suddenly really like Taylor Swift.
@Banana Rama: Me too. She had been annoying me a bit but now I really like her again.
@Veronica:
And the fickle circle of celebrity fandom is complete
@DarkHorse: Indeed.
@DarkHorse: what have you done for humanity? Please we’re all ears.
@Deborah Behan:
Strange question seen as I haven’t criticized Ms Swift
@DarkHorse: I dont think Deborah understood
Taylor swift has annoyed me for a while now but she has been really brilliant throughout this whole situation. The fact that she only countersued for a dollar and then made a charitable donation says a lot about her character. Fair play!
@Laura Walsh: Says a lot about her bank balance also…well done Taylor. That fella must be a right sleaze
@p kilgannon: she does state in the article she is aware that she is not like most victims in that she could shoulder the huge cost to defend herself
Well done to Taylor Swift. Stopping a potential Jimmy Saville, how many women would not be in a position to go after a creep like this.
She’s worth a lot more than $44m. Her property portfolio alone is almost $100m. Conservative estimates put her at $300m.
@OU812: What? she’s successful? How dare she!
And she’s from a comfortable background? Well, that’s just totally unacceptable to a begrudger like me!!
@David Murphey: gimp
@Alan O’Rourke: Wha’?
@Alan O’Rourke: why are you calling him that name ? He was being sarcastic and pointing out her wealth has nothing to do with getting assulated. She admits herself that she was privileged to be in a position to defend and countersue
@David Murphey:
I’m not quite sure what you’re on about & suspect you are too.
@Alan O’Rourke: Name calling like a child in a playground. I’m embarrassed for you.
@Ian Walsh: lolz
He can fondle my buttocks for half a million.
@Pat Troy: I’d say you might have to pay him the half a million though. Taylor Swift on the other hand only countersued him for one dollar. ( only after he tried to sue her ). She only wanted vindication and justice!!
@Catherine Sims: well she doesn’t need the money in fairness..
@Toon Army: She never looked for money and it wasn’t about money but if if hadn’t been for her money this mans actions would probably have gone unchecked .
@Catherine Sims: lol
@Catherine Sims: you really hurt my feelings.
Mariska Hargitay is still playing Olivia Benson as the show is still running. She is Jayne Mansfields daughter too.
Have to say she handled this whole episode with class right from the word go and the charitable donation was the icing on the cake. Still doesn’t alter the fact that her music is absolute pop pap crap tough.
@Emmet Dillane: You may not like her music but millions of young people do and hopefully it will encourage anyone who is the victim of sexual assualt to come forward now. Women men and children anyone !!!
I’m delighted to see such a shift in attitudes. When I was a teenager it was very common to have auld fellas just slap your ass as you passed them on the street . Gardai would laugh at you if you complained too. The only warning you would get is that the auld fellas used to bless themselves before they did it. Sometimes if gave you the chance to run. That’s what was happening in public regularly!!! That was the 80s. Not all that long ago where it was funny to assault teenage girls. One auld guy didn’t realise I was with my mother one day and she just let rip on him. He got shopping bags full of tins beaten off his head. Then she started on him with the umbrella. No one else would stand up for you though. Horrible times !!!
@Catherine Sims: Blessing himself for his act of fornication that will see him hurled into an inferno upon death had he
Not all men are guilty. Just remember the miscarriage of justice in the Homer Simpson Gummy Bear case
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