290 repossession cases in Cork court in past month

A total of 290 property repossession cases came before the Cork County Registrar at the courthouse on Washington Street in the past month.

The registrar has held four sittings dedicated to repossession cases since February 11, the latest of which was held yesterday when 98 cases were heard. Of these:

• 38 involved Permanent TSB.
• 17 involved KBC Bank Ireland Plc.
• 10 involved Bank of Ireland Ltd or the governor and company of the Bank of Ireland.
• 10 involved Ulster Bank Ireland Ltd.
• 9 involved EBS Mortgage Finance or EBS Ltd.
• 5 involved AIB Mortgage Bank or AIB Mortgage Bank and Allied Irish Banks Plc.
• 5 involved Start Mortgages Ltd.
• 2 involved Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) Ltd trading as Pepper Asset Servicing.
• Bank of Scotland Plc and Stepstone Mortgage Funding Ltd were each involved in one case.

The vast majority of the cases were adjourned to a future date.

In most cases the debtors were not present in court. In many instances those who did attend were in a position to outline the efforts they were making to restructure their repayments.

Earlier this week Finance Minister Michael Noonan claimed banks are pursuing repossession cases as a means of negotiating with borrowers in arrears.

“In December alone, 2,500 mortgages were restructured. What we want people to do is engage with their lenders and see can they work out restructuring for their particular case.

“We don’t see repossession as part of the solution,” Mr Noonan said.

The Central Bank says there were 758,988 residential mortgages on private dwellings at the end of 2014. Its figures indicate that 110,366 homeowners are in arrears — this represents over 14.5% of all mortgages.