Number of home mortgages in arrears for over 10 years remains high
Paul Joyce: 'Problem of arrears is not getting worse, but it's not being solved either.' Picture: Tommy Clancy
So-called non-bank entities, better known as vulture funds and their agents, now control almost three quarters of all residential mortgages that have been in some sort of arrears for more than a year, new Central Bank figures show.
The latest residential arrears and repossession statistics at the end of June also show that the number of home mortgages that have been in arrears for over 10 years, at 5,860, remains stubbornly high.
The figures show a continuing gradual fall in the total number of mortgages that are in some sort of arrears.
Of all the 719,550 home mortgages in the Republic in June, there were 46,088 loans in arrears.
At 14,443, the largest number of the 46,088 cases were in arrears for a period of up to 90 days.
The total number of residential mortgage arrears in the Republic peaked at almost 13% of all residential mortgages in 2013. That has fallen in gradual steps to account for a share of 4.4% in June.
However, Paul Joyce, senior policy analyst at the Free Legal Advice Centres, or Flac, said the figures show that the overall problem of residential mortgage arrears a decade after Ireland's huge banking and property crash although "not getting worse, was yet not being solved" either.
Mr Joyce also highlighted the figures showing that non-bank entities controlled 74.5% of all residential mortgages that are in arrears for over a year.
The Central Bank said that 89% of mortgage holders whose loans had been subject to a restructuring deal to help them continue to service their loans were meeting the new terms.
"This means that the borrower is, at a minimum, meeting the agreed monthly repayments according to the current restructure arrangement," it said in a commentary on the new figures.
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