Number in mortgage arrears drops slightly

There has been a slight decrease in the

The total amount of mortgages in arrears was

117,711 at the end of October compared with

118,438 at the end of September. The total

amount of mortgage accounts at the end of

October was 698,206.

There were 80,854 mortgages in arrears by

over 90 days at the end of October compared

with 81,156 at the end of September. There

were 36,857 mortgages in arrears less than 90

days at the end of October compared with

37,282 at the end of September.

There are also signs that the banks are

putting in place permanent restructurings

rather than short-term solutions that

dominated during the early phase of the

crisis.

There were a total of 19,152 mortgage

restructurings by the end of October,

compared with 18,513 at the end of September.

Of these there were 12,956 permanent

restructurings by the end of October, which

is up from 11,516 at the end of September.

The Department of Finance figures are brought

out at the end of every month. They differ

from the Central Bank figures, which are

brought out on a quarterly basis, because

they only cover six lenders — Bank of

Ireland, AIB, PTSB, ACC, KBC and Ulster Bank.

Of the 49,032 mortgages that had been

permanently restructured by the end of

October, 14,804 had a term extension; 1,536

were on interest only for a fixed period;

13,093 had their arrears capitalised; 9,420

had fixed repayments greater than their

interest-only repayments; 4,798 were on split

mortgages; and, 5,381 were a combination of

treatments.

The buy-to-let sector posted a marginal

increase in the total level of arrears. It

went from 34,192 at the end of September to

34,237 at the end of October. The most common

type of restructuring in the buy-to-let

sector is interest only with 8,004 falling

into this category.