Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 8 December 2016

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

Central Bank (Variable Rate Mortgages) Bill 2016: Central Bank of Ireland

9:30 am

Mr. Bernard Sheridan:

We do not review individual mortgage contracts, although in the context of the tracker examination we have been looking in detail at the various tracker contracts that were on the market. The ability to switch is available to people. Clearly, with fixed rate mortgages there are penalties for switching, so there would be terms regarding the penalty that would be applied if one switches before the end of the fixed term. Generally, there is no prohibition on switching with standard variable rate mortgages and others. In reality, however, if somebody gets into arrears or has negative equity, the ability to switch is impacted, but not necessarily by the contract per se.