Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 6 December 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Sale of Permanent TSB Mortgage Loans: Discussion

2:00 pm

Mr. Cormac Ryan:

Exactly. By the originator, that is the bank that originally provided the loan. Permanent TSB was also the bank that was in charge of the loan and it should be acknowledged in this forum that all of these customers did go through a period of distress given that they went through an arrangement. While the loans are performing now we are extremely aware that these customers have had issues in the past. Thankfully they are now in an arrangement and are all paying. I just wanted to make sure that we are clear and that we acknowledge that. The loans would be in the warehouse treatment, which obviously is quite a big folio, and the first decision we will need to look at is the review periods of the alternative repayment arrangements. The Senator made a very good point; the review periods may change in the future. It is not a lock-down term in the contracts. I have been quite open and I have given five assurances. We need to be quite open - I believe in being genuine with customers - and the frequency of the review periods has been a product of the number of people who have been assigned to this. Earlier I had said - verbally as it was not included in my submission - that I do not see any customer being reviewed more than annually unless in exceptional circumstances. There is not a specific number in the code of conduct on mortgage arrears. It does refer to appropriate frequency and we will absolutely consider that as to what is appropriate. Again, we would consider when the last review was held. That would be a reasonable way for us to consider when to do the actual review. I also echo Mr. Masding's comments that while those reviews need to be done in a considerate, sympathetic and constructive way a review is not only in the interests of the servicer and the ultimate beneficial owner. In many cases it might actually be the in the interests of the mortgage holder. I have given a few hypothetical examples. There may be a situation where a mortgage holder has not been reviewed in a couple of years and unfortunately his or her circumstances have not improved. The mortgage holder may be in a worse position than two or three years ago. If that is the case and we go through the review we will want to speak to that person to see if we can do something to help. That is how we will approach the review period. I cannot say exactly when it will happen. We will look at all the portfolios and will work out what is appropriate to keep on two years or three years-----

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