IBRC mortgage holders stage sit-in

Ten protesters staged a sit-in yesterday in the offices of KPMG Liquidators amid claims that they had been "abandoned" by the Government.

They said they represented a group of 13,500 former Irish Nationwide Building Society mortgage holders, who “through no fault of our own got caught up in the IBRC liquidation”.

The group began protesting against their loans being sold ahead of a new sales process, due to begin in the coming weeks on the remaining unsold 6,000 mortgages, being off-loaded as part of the liquidation of IBRC.

“Due to the manner in which we have been treated by the Government, the IBRC and the special liquidators in KPMG appointed by Finance Minister Michael Noonan, we feel we have been left with no alternative but to stage this protest,” the group said.

“We are Irish citizens who have rights but we feel our Government has abandoned us and literally thrown us to the vultures like a piece of meat.” The protesters said since the liquidation process at IBRC began, they had been left “completely in the dark regarding the fate of our mortgages”.

“We have received little or no correspondence from IBRC and the liquidators despite having written to them on several occasions raising our concerns,” they said. “We have received absolutely no written guarantees of CCMA [Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears] protection from the proposed purchasers of our mortgages.”

The group added they had been denied the chance to bid for their loans despite numerous requests to do so.

“About 6,000 mortgages have already been auctioned to the vulture funds like Oaktree or Lone Star,” they said. “They were able to bid for our homes while we were left powerless by the liquidator and the law. We are totally opposed to this immoral sale and the manner in which it is being carried out.”

They added the sale w would set a precedent for future sales and “will offer little or no CCMA protection for the sale of mortgages by other banks”