Mr. Paul Joyce:

Under the code of conduct for mortgage arrears, there is provision for an appeal from the lender's arrears support unit. This unit assess the financial information and standard financial statement and looks at the potential range of so-called alternative repayment arrangements. Then the unit decides to grant an arrangement or otherwise at its discretion. Then, there is an appeal from the lender's arrears support unit to the lender's appeals board. In our experience, many of those appeals are rubber-stamping exercises under which the appeals board upholds the decision of the arrears support unit, often with little detail on how the board has arrived at its conclusions.

In our view there should be a proper independent appeal to a third party. Furthermore, borrowers need to have the tools at their disposal to make the arguments and set out why they believe their mortgages are sustainable or may be sustainable in the long run. We have called for this since 2010. Unfortunately, the code of conduct on mortgage arrears is a very one-sided equation. It looks good in theory, with a series of criteria through which an assessment has to be made. Those involved are supposed to look at the current indebtedness of the borrower as well as the current income, the payment record in the past, future access and so on. It talks a good show but, unfortunately, when push comes to shove it is an imbalanced instrument. The fact that a person cannot use alleged failure to comply with the code in a repossession case in the court caps it off from the borrower's point of view.

I do not think it would be a dramatic step to allow for an independent appeal.