Donegal Deputy Pearse Doherty has hit out at vulture funds claiming they are driving people back into mortgage arrears.
It follows information which show one in four people that had managed to work themselves out of arrears and get their mortgage back on track since the financial crash and austerity have been pushed back into arrears by extortionately high interest rates.
Deputy Doherty said “The predatory practices of vulture funds have gone completely unchecked by this government allowing them to drive people doing their best to pay their mortgages back into arrears.
“The vast majority of mortgage-holders who are trapped with vulture funds are being charged extortionate interest rates. Over 100,000 of them are paying over 6 percent and 7,000 are paying over 8.5%. That can mean handing over thousands of euro more a year to these vulture funds than if they were with a traditional bank.
“The reason many people are prisoners to these vulture funds is because they have previously been in arrears – they have what is known as ‘impaired credit histories’ or have been through a restructuring process.”
The Sinn Fein TD said many people have worked extremely hard and have done everything right to get their mortgage back on track with the hope of escaping the vulture funds.
But, for the 27% that have been pushed back into arrears by the totally unjustified hikes in their interest rates, that hope has now been taken away.
He added “This was completely foreseeable because vulture funds are incentivised to rip people off in this way. These people are mortgage prisoners so vulture funds know they can jack up the interest rate without any fear of them moving to another mortgage provider. And by forcing them into arrears again vulture funds get to keep them as mortgage prisoners for longer.
“It is beyond time for the government to act and mandate vulture funds to provide interest rates at the same level as banks. And the government needs to give all mortgage holders that have played by the rules the right to transfer back to banks regardless of the status of their mortgage.
“Holding the government to account on this issue is yet another reason why we need the Finance Committee up and running something that has been blocked and delayed by government.”
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