‘Little or no change’ in mortgage arrears figures

Mortgage arrears figures to be published today will not show any significant improvement for more than 100,000 distressed households.

Government sources said that while the number of mortgages over 90 days in arrears has dropped from 117,000 to about 116,000, there has been “little or no change in the figures”.

Sources said the figures released by the Department of Finance will show the number of permanently restructured mortgages — accounts “that became performing” — totals about 50,000.

The most common form of restructuring, totalling around 15,000 cases, is loan term extensions where the borrower can make lower monthly payments over a much longer period of time.

Split mortgages account for about 5,000 cases. These see a percentage of the loan “parked” and the rest paid off normally.

However, some banks charge interest on the parked amount, which is likely to cause problems in the future.

About 1,000 homeowners have switched to interest-only payments where the loan capital remains unchanged as lower interest only payments are made.

There are almost 60,000 mortgage accounts in arrears above one year, with 31,000 of them in arrears for over two years.

They make up €1.8bn of the €2.2bn of actual monies owed in mortgage arrears.

Campaigners such as David Hall of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation (IMHO) have warned the country is facing a potential €10bn bill if “the crisis is not properly dealt with”.