Mortgage debt relief for Budget 2011 campaign

ken.cowley

Anyone interested in this please have a look at the following Facebook group campaigning for some element of mortgage debt forgiveness in the upcoming budget (the group is called
Irish Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Campaign)

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/home.php?sk=group_176102049067351&ap=1

Thanks,

Ken

Gaz

So you want the taxpayer to cover part of your mortgage ?

What about people like me who actually seen the bubble for what it was and didnt make a foolish purchase that they couldnt afford, why should I pay for your bad financial decisions ?

frankie2shoes

+1 GAZ

Monty Burnz

+2 Gaz. I didn't even buy myself a house, I'd rather not have to pay for someone else's.:(

murphaph

ken.cowley wrote: »

Anyone interested in this please have a look at the following Facebook group campaigning for some element of mortgage debt forgiveness in the upcoming budget (the group is called
Irish Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Campaign)

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/home.php?sk=group_176102049067351&ap=1

Thanks,

Ken

Can I have part of your house if I pay for part of your mortgage? We've bailed enough banks out of their bad decisions because we've been told they are systemic but bailing out individuals because of their poor financial judgement is a step too far.

danbohan

ken.cowley wrote: »

Anyone interested in this please have a look at the following Facebook group campaigning for some element of mortgage debt forgiveness in the upcoming budget (the group is called
Irish Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Campaign)

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/home.php?sk=group_176102049067351&ap=1

Thanks,

Ken

could i just send a cheque ?

JJJJNR

Well were paying for everything else why not throw in a couple more things, just kidding, yeah I think there should be some sort of fogiveness based on the family home, I mean the man on the street trying his hardest to home his family, working his way through life and not being a social welfare sponger with a free this and that, YES I'd like to help someone honest who got caught up in this mess... the rest can F*** OFF.

sipstrassi

When my husband and I applied for our mortgage we could have got more than twice what we asked for. We did consider it. Instead we went for a modest semi. One that had bare concrete floors for the first year and still has some things that will have to wait 8 years on.
So why didn't we go all out?
We sat down and said can we afford the repayments if one of us loses our job? Or if interest rates go up to 15%? etc.etc.
We should (hopefully) be ok with our current borrowings.
But now some people are suggesting that I pay more in taxes to help pay the mortgages of people who didn't exercise any caution? Who bought the nicer/bigger/btter located house? Who at the end of the day will still have the nicer/bigger/better located and eventually more valuable house?
That is penalising those who didn't buy into the property madness and rewarding those who did.
Heard a man on the radio saying he was in real trouble as he bought a couple of investment properties and can't afford the payments and the bank should have to take the hit too?
Why????
You gambled, you lost.

I appreciate that for a lot of people in trouble their biggest crime was believing the salemen in the banks and mortgage brokers that everyone is doing it and it's acceptable (renting a room, including overtime as wages etc.).
I have sympathy for those trying to save their family home. And yes they have to be helped.

But there has to be a fairer way to do it than to load it on those of us who exercised caution.

Monty Burnz

JJJJNR wrote: »

Well were paying for everything else why not throw in a couple more things, just kidding, yeah I think there should be some sort of fogiveness based on the family home, I mean the man on the street trying his hardest to home his family, working his way through life and not being a social welfare sponger with a free this and that, YES I'd like to help someone honest who got caught up in this mess... the rest can F*** OFF.

JJJJNR - I admire your selfless attitude, but I don't share it. Would you agree with a voluntary tax so that those who have spare money and want to bail out people who made bad financial decisions* can help them out?

*I feel sorry for people who are in mortgage trouble if they were in 'secure' jobs (i.e. not bubble or construction related) and lost them. Anyone else, not so much.

Cuddlesworth

ken.cowley wrote: »

Anyone interested in this please have a look at the following Facebook group campaigning for some element of mortgage debt forgiveness in the upcoming budget (the group is called
Irish Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Campaign)

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/home.php?sk=group_176102049067351&ap=1

Thanks,

Ken

Sounds great. Who wants their car loan paid off as well?

MYSTICA1

sipstrassi wrote: »

When my husband and I applied for our mortgage we could have got more than twice what we asked for. We did consider it. Instead we went for a modest semi. One that had bare concrete floors for the first year and still has some things that will have to wait 8 years on.
So why didn't we go all out?
We sat down and said can we afford the repayments if one of us loses our job? Or if interest rates go up to 15%? etc.etc.
We should (hopefully) be ok with our current borrowings.
But now some people are suggesting that I pay more in taxes to help pay the mortgages of people who didn't exercise any caution? Who bought the nicer/bigger/btter located house? Who at the end of the day will still have the nicer/bigger/better located and eventually more valuable house?
That is penalising those who didn't buy into the property madness and rewarding those who did.
Heard a man on the radio saying he was in real trouble as he bought a couple of investment properties and can't afford the payments and the bank should have to take the hit too?
Why????
You gambled, you lost.

I appreciate that for a lot of people in trouble their biggest crime was believing the salemen in the banks and mortgage brokers that everyone is doing it and it's acceptable (renting a room, including overtime as wages etc.).
I have sympathy for those trying to save their family home. And yes they have to be helped.

But there has to be a fairer way to do it than to load it on those of us who exercised caution.

WELL SAID .. Those who were greedy and had no foresight, buying above their means, cannot expect the rest of us to pay for their foolishness.

Nasty_Girl

I don't know what the solution to this is,
people made mistakes,
I didn't , many others didn't but a lot did.

I don't like the idea of people being in debt up to their eyes for the rest of their lives but there has to be a fair way to help.

Philsopher

Gaz wrote: »

So you want the taxpayer to cover part of your mortgage ?

What about people like me who actually seen the bubble for what it was and didnt make a foolish purchase that they couldnt afford, why should I pay for your bad financial decisions ?

+1

I didn't buy a house because I couldn't afford one. Simple as. Why should I pay off a mortgage for someone who couldn't afford to buy but went ahead and bought anyway, which in turn kept inflating the market even further until the whole thing crashed. Now, they want me to pay off their overinflated mortage on some ghost estate, rental investment or negative equity cardboard box because things didn't work out for them? Are you for real??

This country would want to cop on. The sooner that people realise they have to take personal responsibility for their own actions, the better.

thebman

I know someone who bought a house after I advised them not to that told me, sure why not? Its a bubble but its too big now, the government will have to bail us out and bought a house anyway.

Literally I was told the above at the height of this madness and I can't see why such people should be given an escape route out of their problems now.

I do feel sorry for people and members of my own family are in this situation. There needs to be some write down but people should be squeezed hard first and be at the point where the banks only other option is to take the keys off them before they are shown any relief when there were people out there with the above attitude.

Those people need to learn there is no such thing as a free lunch.

JJJJNR

Can we all just admit that everyone benefited due to the "good times" brought to you by the good ol house buyer, when the gov coffers were up they slashed taxes, every single working person in this country was happy to say nothing when they were being handed lower taxes from the housing boom. Blinded by your own hypocrisy if you think you made a choice by not getting on the housing ladder, it was just down to personal circumstance 99% of the time, had those circumstances been different who knows.

thebman

JJJJNR wrote: »

Can we all just admit that everyone benefited due to the "good times" brought to you by the good ol house buyer, when the gov coffers were up they slashed taxes, every single working person in this country was happy to say nothing when they were being handed lower taxes from the housing boom. Blinded by your own hypocrisy if you think you made a choice by not getting on the housing ladder, it was just down to personal circumstance 99% of the time, had those circumstances been different who knows.

lol no that isn't even remotely factual. Your blinded by your own desire to believe the above TBH.

Personal circumstances for one person were not a barrier for another person.

One person could be earning 30,000 a year and decide that was enough to get on the property ladder while someone else on the same wage would decide that it wasn't.

It has nothing to do with personal circumstances in many cases but instead the way people view their personal circumstances which is a very different thing.


Its also irrelevant whether people benefited or not from house buyers taxes ,it was unsustainable and if we had followed sustainable economic practices we could have all the same things and not be bankrupt right now much like the better European countries.

Even if the above was true, it is still no reason for anyone to bail out other peoples mortgages as it was still their choice to take them out. Many people with mortgages are just looking for anyway to get a free ride at the moment off the taxpayer because they see the bank getting bailed out and think they should too.

Buying the house was a personal decision on their part, let them live with that decision. Why should anyone bail them out? A squeeze them until they have nothing and then let them negotiate their debt would be a very fair arrangement TBH considering they should just pay it all back since they borrowed in the first place.

blue_steel

Knew this poster would get hammered :pac: Is debt forgiveness a good idea? NO. But neither is shoveling billions into the banks and we are all doing that. I'd rather my taxes went to help people genuinely in trouble with their mortgage than to Anglo Irish Bank.
I loath the small time property speculators who bought 2 and 3 places during the boom. Imo they are as culpable as the banks and the government in causing this mess. BUT I do have a lot of sympathy for people who saw prices rising year after year and eventually took the plunge because they wanted a family home. Those people should be helped.

JJJJNR

thebman wrote: »

lol no that isn't even remotely factual. Your blinded by your own desire to believe the above TBH.

Personal circumstances for one person were not a barrier for another person.

One person could be earning 30,000 a year and decide that was enough to get on the property ladder while someone else on the same wage would decide that it wasn't.

It has nothing to do with personal circumstances in many cases but instead the way people view their personal circumstances which is a very different thing.


Its also irrelevant whether people benefited or not from house buyers taxes ,it was unsustainable and if we had followed sustainable economic practices we could have all the same things and not be bankrupt right now much like the better European countries.

Even if the above was true, it is still no reason for anyone to bail out other peoples mortgages as it was still their choice to take them out. Many people with mortgages are just looking for anyway to get a free ride at the moment off the taxpayer because they see the bank getting bailed out and think they should too.

Buying the house was a personal decision on their part, let them live with that decision. Why should anyone bail them out? A squeeze them until they have nothing and then let them negotiate their debt would be a very fair arrangement TBH considering they should just pay it all back since they borrowed in the first place.

Hold on a second, the bank sold a bad product to the house buyer in the first place, they should be held accountable for their actions here. If Joe Soap's family and future generations are going to be paying for the banks and governments stupidity through their taxes they shouldn't have to pay twice. The family home should be taken into consideration for a write down of the outstanding balance. if people have multiple properties that is an investment which is totally different.

"Squeeze them till they have nothing" thats frankly pathetic. Would you like your parents to be in a similar situation when you were growing up.

Kiki10

sipstrassi wrote: »

When my husband and I applied for our mortgage we could have got more than twice what we asked for. We did consider it. Instead we went for a modest semi. One that had bare concrete floors for the first year and still has some things that will have to wait 8 years on.
So why didn't we go all out?
We sat down and said can we afford the repayments if one of us loses our job? Or if interest rates go up to 15%? etc.etc.
We should (hopefully) be ok with our current borrowings.
But now some people are suggesting that I pay more in taxes to help pay the mortgages of people who didn't exercise any caution? Who bought the nicer/bigger/btter located house? Who at the end of the day will still have the nicer/bigger/better located and eventually more valuable house?
That is penalising those who didn't buy into the property madness and rewarding those who did.
Heard a man on the radio saying he was in real trouble as he bought a couple of investment properties and can't afford the payments and the bank should have to take the hit too?
Why????
You gambled, you lost.

I appreciate that for a lot of people in trouble their biggest crime was believing the salemen in the banks and mortgage brokers that everyone is doing it and it's acceptable (renting a room, including overtime as wages etc.).
I have sympathy for those trying to save their family home. And yes they have to be helped.

But there has to be a fairer way to do it than to load it on those of us who exercised caution.

Fair play to you for out smarting the bank mgr. You say you bought your house 8 years ago. If you did what the bank mgr told you, you could have sold your house 4 years later for a fortune, bought your simi and have a couple hundred K in the bank today to worry about???
Id prefer to give a once grant to the man putting a roof over his kids head which still ends up in the banks paws than just give it straight to the bank and blame they guy for listening to the professionals and popular government

sipstrassi

Kiki10 wrote: »

Fair play to you for out smarting the bank mgr. You say you bought your house 8 years ago. If you did what the bank mgr told you, you could have sold your house 4 years later for a fortune, bought your simi and have a couple hundred K in the bank today to worry about???
Id prefer to give a once grant to the man putting a roof over his kids head which still ends up in the banks paws than just give it straight to the bank and blame they guy for listening to the professionals and popular government

You're right. I could have doubled my money. But that comma you have between 'fortune' and 'bought your semi and have a couple hundred k' covers the last 4 years (using your calculation). And I wasn't interested in renting and paying someone else's mortgage for that period of time. I bought my house to live in it. Not to make money on it.

I didn't 'blame the guy for listening to the professionals', believing everything they said maybe. And I accept there are genuine cases. But don't accept my taxes should be raised to allow people who didn't do their sums to have their houses and not have to pay for them. Why should any of us bother paying our mortgages if that's the case?
There are other ways to help people in trouble (deferring the payments for X years or making the banks suspend the interest and renegotiate for people in trouble with their family homes etc.) without punishing those who were careful.

And those so called 'professionals' should be prosecuted. In the same way that a bar owner would be prosecuted for selling alcohol to someone who was already too drunk to stand.

I also do not agree with my taxes being raised to bail out the banks. But that's a whole other argument and I will be having it with the political candidates if they come calling.

Kiki10

You should considering putting your hat in one of the sane party's [FG Lab] Some one that can do simple sums would be a welcome change!
Actually all the know-it-all couples really out bid me so often for properties that everyone knew where not worth it. Cause of that Iv had to work harder to keep a roof over my kids heads Like yourself. I should really like to watch those same people burn like they did to people like us in auctions. But our taxes are been raised not to cover mortgages but the banks who lent those mortgages. I just feel lets filter that money to the banks through mortgage holders to avoid the double whammy of the banks been paid by us as tax payers and by us as mortgage payers?

Buddha Star

Today I was talking to a Labout TD's secretary, they said that Fianna Gael are planning to abstain from the budget vote in the Dail on December 7th. By abstaining on the budget vote FG will be handing over our fiscal arrangements to the EU as agreed my this unmandated government.
What is the point in having FG in power if we have NO control whatsoever over our fiscal arrangements, quarterly budgets that will be cut, cut, cut , once the state assetts have been sold off.

Tigger

of course they'll abstain

if the budget dosen't go through then fg would have to bring it through (in a similarly drastic shape) in jan/feb

if it does then they can do the "my hands are tied" thing

GymJim

Frankly speaking I think any notion of debt forgiveness is another sign of the ridiculous economic mindset at the moment.

Let's take for example the government's continued resistance to letting bondholders take any of the hit through a default on some of our national debt. What seems to be fostered now is a complete lack of personal responsibility for fiscal decisions. How can people now make investments and avoid the downside. Essentially both the risks and responsibilities have been removed in one fail swoop.

It's like somebody going to a fancy restaurant, eating the food and then saying they can't afford to pay for it. By this logic, clearly it's then the fault of the restaurant for making the food look so appealing rather than their own fault for not taking a moment to figure out whether they would actually be able to afford it.

And I think this is telling in how some people now view what they seem to deem an entitlement to some kind of write-off of their own fiscal responsibility. Just because you are offered something does not in any way oblige you to take it, you still have an obligation to consider the feasibility and repercussions of it from a personal perspective so I do not accept people blaming the lenders solely.

This is not to say the banks do not have an obligation on foot of their bailout however. But this is an obligation to re-negotiate rather than forgive otherwise those who made sensible decisions will be forced to carry the can for those who were quite bluntly reckless.

I would suggest it is in both the interest of the banks (in light of the lack of a current property market) and the mortgage holders to perhaps look at some sort of rent-to-buy scheme. For example, whereby the bank is receiving at least interest repayments shorter term as the saved rental payments on alternative accommodation for the borrower and the borrower is given a grace period of sort to potentially change their circumstances over a few years. This way people are offered an extended opportunity try re-arrange their private lives to make the house cost manageable and if it is not possible over this extended period then the only fair outcome is a foreclosure (and time to cut ones losses) as it is clearly not within their means.

Essentially it is amazing that our unfathomable obsession with property ownership has dragged the country to it's knees.

Eoin

I don't agree with the mortgage debt forgiveness idea, but I hate the schadenfreude that is being shown by those who didn't buy a house.

Some people did sit down and work out what they could afford. However, they might not have budgeted that their disposable income would be so badly hit on so many fronts - redundancies, levies, pay cuts, reduced hours and so on.

Well done to those who didn't get saddled with a big debt, but please try and show a bit of class and not lord it over those who just wanted a family home.

gsxr1

i also dont believe in debt forgiveness

I bought in 2008. right in the boom. lost my job but still stuggle through.

Its still cheaper than rent.


I would like to see better tax relief for those who bought in the height of it. I think that would be fair. People who bought before and after the boom payed a whole lot less for their home than us.

It would cost nothing to anyone. It would stop people from default on their loans.