Couple on welfare were approved for €300k loan
She is one of thousands of homeowners in negative equity. But, unlike most, Central Bank investigators are examining the broker group which arranged the remortgage of the family’s home and the sales practices used to broker the loan.
Despite Jennifer and her husband being on social welfare and in arrears on their original mortgage, the couple was given a €300,000 remortgage.
They ran a fruit and veg stall at the weekends, but their joint income to secure the loan was declared as €100,000 by the broker, which is now under investigation.
Investigators from the Central Bank’s enforcement department visited the mother of two at her home earlier this year. They took statements about the loan, brokered through Irish Mortgage Corporation (IMC), under its subprime operator, Moneyzone.
Investigators informed her by letter that the Central Bank was looking at IMC’s sales processes and the sale of mortgages.
The couple bought the house in 1999 for £194,000 but had decided they wanted to pay off arrears on the original mortgage, other loans and fix up the home. A €300,000 remortgage loan, brokered by IMC but lent by Springboard Mortgages, was agreed in August 2007 on the basis that the three-bed house was worth nearly €600,000.
“We were very badly advised on that [the loan],” says Jennifer. “When we even went for it and my husband didn’t even have insurance, how could they let a loan go through for that kind of money? Now that I think back on it, it was like shaking hands with the devil, like taking money off the devil. I’m raging I ever went down that road.
“We should have just stayed the way we were. But at the time, you don’t think. You think you’re going to be okay, that you’re going to be able to pay it every month.”
In a statement to the investigators, she said the strain had led to her husband taking his life.
“We received numerous calls and letters from Springboard threatening to take us to court.
“This put my husband under enormous strain and pressure. I feel this had a major contribution towards the reasons for his death.” *Name changed to protect family’s identity.
