‘Refinements’ take sting out of mortgage rules

The Central Bank had by accident dropped into a political fight which it was never going to lose, but has nonetheless avoided a much messier outcome by sanctioning only minor changes to its inflexible mortgage lending rules.

Since their unveiling in February 2015, business people most connected to selling mortgages and building houses had led the charge, highlighting the ‘hard cases’ thrown up by the rules.

There was no question that the old rules were unwisely inflexible, pushing out the prospects for many would-be-first-time-buyers from securing a deposit, as prices started to accelerate.