Mortgage arrears - Evictions are not the answer

IT is not too hard to feel a sense of injustice, even anger, at remarks made by Financial Regulator Matthew Elderfield when he insisted that the principle of moral hazard must apply to mortgage holders.

Declaring, earlier this week, that there was “no silver bullet solution” to the growing problem of arrears, Mr Elderfield outlined a range of options for struggling mortgage holders very different to those afforded by taxpayers to ruined banks who were, unlike most homeowners, architects of their own downfall. If moral hazard must apply to one then why not to the other?

From a financial regulator’s perspective Mr Elderfield was, unfortunately, correct to say what he did but from a social point of view another way will have to be found. It is not acceptable, and we all know it, that families who cannot meet their obligations because they have lost jobs might be forced out of their homes.