Mortgage difficulties - Banks need to show sympathy

Some people who have run into difficulties in paying off their mortgages have surrendered those mortgages voluntarily and remained on as renting tenants.

They thereby avoid a bad credit rating, while the bank receives an income from the property in the current climate when it would be impossible to sell it.

While voluntary surrender — which allows a customer to become a tenant paying rent to the mortgage provider as the landlord — is a relatively new concept in Ireland it was common in British during the negative equity crisis of the 1980s.