Francis Noel Duffy (Dublin South West, Green Party)
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191. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if his Department will consider measures to provide buy-back options for mortgage-to-rent tenants by way of a discount; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26045/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Mortgage to Rent (MTR) scheme was introduced in 2012. It offers households with acute, unsustainable mortgage arrears who have little or no prospect of a significant change in circumstances, the chance to surrender a property to a lender and in turn become a social housing tenant whilst staying in their own home and community.

The MTR scheme is targeted at those households in mortgage arrears who have had their mortgage position deemed unsustainable by their lender under the Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process (MARP), and who have very limited options, if any, to meet their long-term housing needs themselves.

The MARP is a framework that sets out rules for how lenders must deal with borrowers when they fall into mortgage arrears or are in pre-arrears. It forms a major part of the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears (CCMA) which is a statutory code set out by the Central Bank of Ireland. The CCMA and the MARP can be found in full on the Central Bank’s website .

Within the MARP framework there are many potential resolutions for borrowers in mortgage arrears, once they are engaging with their lender. The appropriate solution for each borrower will depend on their personal financial circumstances. If it has been determined that a borrower has no other possible resolution to their mortgage arrears situation once they have worked through the MARP process with their lender, they can then turn to the MTR scheme to see if they meet the eligibility criteria.

If an individual who has successfully gone through the MTR scheme can subsequently obtain the finance for the purchase, they can buy the property back after 5 years. The price the individual will pay for the property at this time, will be the open market value at the time the purchase back is being undertaken or the price the buyer paid for the property, including costs with a clawback applied (the value of which relates to time between the buyer purchasing it and the individual buying it back).

There are currently no plans in place to change the existing structure of the buy-back element of the MTR scheme. It is not anticipated that there will be a significant number of individuals availing of the buy back option because, as stated , the MTR scheme is targeted at those borrowers with little or no prospect of a significant change in their financial circumstances.

The two buyback options available for MTR properties are set out in full in the document 'A Guide to the Mortgage to Rent Scheme' which is available at the following link: .