James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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151. To ask the Minister for Finance if his Department has adopted a standard financial statement for use by all lenders and MABS to assess a borrower’s financial position in line with recommendations from the Mental Health Commission and the mortgage arrears and personal debt expert group; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36270/17]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Central Bank’s Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears (CCMA) provides a strong consumer protection framework to ensure that each borrower who is struggling to keep up mortgage repayments is treated in a timely, transparent and fair manner by lenders.  

The CCMA sets out how lenders must treat borrowers in mortgage arrears, or facing mortgage arrears, with due regard to the fact that each case of mortgage difficulty is unique and needs to be considered on its own merits. All cases must be handled sympathetically and positively by the lender, with the objective at all times of assisting the borrower to meet his/her mortgage obligations. The CCMA sets out the Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process (MARP) as the framework lenders must follow when dealing with borrowers in mortgage arrears or pre-arrears.

As part of the MARP process, lenders will need to gather relevant financial information from a mortgage borrower. To that end, Appendix 1 of the CCMA

() now sets out a Standard Financial Statement (SFS) which is to be used by all lenders and other relevant creditors across the industry in line with the recommendation which was made by the Mortgage Arrears and Personal Debt Expert Group. The SFS is essential to the effectiveness of the MARP Process and the standard format ensures that assessments of borrowers’ cases will be based on a common analysis of their financial circumstances.

It could also be noted that, in a more general way, the Consumer Protection Code (provision 3.1) also requires regulated entities to provide such reasonable assistance and/or assistance that may be necessary to a vulnerable customer to facilitate his/her dealings with the regulated entity.