Might be of interest. ================================================ Ulster Bank is beginning a campaign today to deal with distressed mortgages by encouraging those who are in default but have no contact with the bank to communicate with the lender. The bank is to write to 2,000 people in arrears telling them if they sell their homes they will not be pursued for the outstanding debt if they are on low incomes, RTE Radio reported. The commitment is made in a document which will be sent to people who have not communicated with the bank regarding their outstanding mortgage payments. It says if people are eligible for social housing and sell their homes they will not be pursued for the outstanding debt. For those on higher incomes who sell their homes, the bank says it will agree a fair process regarding the residual borrowings. "While we are seeing increases in repossessions through vacant and abandoned properties, we do not want to see an increase in forced repossessions," Ulster Bank's chief risk officer Stephen Bell "We hope that people in difficulty find our commitments to be clear, comforting and choose to accept our help. However, it is vital that our approach is fair for all customers - both those maintaining their home loans and those who are in difficulty."
While I'm sure it's going to be riddled with conditions (and rightly so), it's a good idea in principal to be a little more upfront in stating what they are prepared to do.
Ulster Bank pulling out of Ireland. Been with them with since 2014 and no issues with them. Had loads of issues with BOI https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/0219/1198044-ulster-bank-ireland/
Wonder where my mortgage will end up? Not worried since I found out whoever takes it has to honour the terms, but curious.
Charlie Weston on Twitter will answer that question for you. If you go on his timeline he may have already answered it for somebody else.I tried David McWilliams last week with no joy, but in hindsight he has a podcast and is offering courses and advice to people for a fee, so why would he just give it to me on Twitter for free
There is only one answer to that Gary, you switch provider. And that is not just in relation to Ulster Bank. Everyone should switch mortgages every few years the same as you would your car insurance. It will save you thousands for a small bit of paperwork every few years and a lot of providers will cover the cost of switching. We're in our current house less than 4 years and have already switched once. I am on a fixed rate with UB at the moment but when that finishes we will switch to whoever is lowest on the market at that point, and keep doing it.
fully agree with this. We are similar, 4 years here and switched last year. Halfway through a 2 year fixed rate with BOI and will switch again if better offer available Hopefully the loss of Ulster Bank won’t cause lack of competition though
At the moment, I think it will end up with PTSB. However, they are far from having a deal done. 100% correct that any new bank / fund is legally bound to honour the contractual terms and conditions. The ont way that they can ever be changed, is if you agree to the change, or you default and they call in the loan. Again, at the moment, PTSB looks the most likely contender. While you are on the fixed rate, just sit back and relax, when it ends, see what's on offer from whoever your lender is then, and elsewhere in the market. At the moment, for anyone not holding a tracker mortgage, the next best thing on offer is from Avant Money - their rate is 1.95%, (fixed for up to 7yrs) but it's only for up to 60% LTVs, and they'll ont lend on homes in cities and large towns. Based on what's come out from Ulster Bank, moving homeloans and commercial loans is going to take a year out two... They only exception to that, is for people who are in long term arrears, their loans may be sold to a fund, a little quicker. I reckon little will happen this year, but expect lots of branches to close, and then efforts to be made up get everyone to close their current accounts, and maybe credit card accounts (if that business isn't sold on), as some of the first steps.
While I agree about checking homeloan rates and considering moving lender, every few years.... It's also worth checking the cost of your mortgage protection policies, life policies, serious illness cover etc. every few years. Rates can change significantly, and while it often looks like it's only dropped by one or two euro, that's every month, for a potential 20-35 year term, so it's quite a lot of money to be saved, over the life of the policy. Don't worry about the mortgage protection or life policies being signed to the ban that did your homeloan, it's easy to get anew policy from any provider, and cancel the old one. The bank will just want the new one assigned to them, which is a simple signature on a form. Take a look at some of the discount brokers online for quotes - the likes of Low.ie and LA Brokers, for example.
https://www.avantmoney.ie/ look to have very decent rates for fixed mortgages. I'm in my last year of a 3 year fixed rate so will be looking around towards the end of this one.
Wow that's a fantastic rate to be fair, that would be pretty much in line with european standards. Has anyone gone with these guys or is there any reason you wouldn't?
I was contemplating it but with only a few years ars left in my mortgage with KBC I decided to stay and take out 3 year fixed with KBC at 2.25%. Between the short time(3 years) and cost of changing providers it wouldn't have been worth while to switch.
While Avant's rate is very attractive, if you are sub 60% LTV, I gather that they are very picky about locations - it may be just the cities, or cities and very large towns, can't recall exactly which. For anyone on a variable rate with any of the banks, they should try and get Avant's 1.95% rate for 7 years. It's the best deal in town...
I'm on a variable and was very interested in switching but now that I've looked into it AIB actually have a 2.25% rate available for me on a 5 year fixed so the savings would be €23 a month so not sure it would be worth it with the costs of switching. I saw all of that about Avant, I guess that's why they can undercut the market by only dealing in very safe mortgages, might damage the market long-run if you get more lenders like that taking only the safest mortgages and leaving the main banks with a greater % of the riskier ones.
Ed, You reckon the saving is €23 per month, that's multiplied by 60 months, so that's €1,380 of your after tax earnings, that you are happy to leave behind you, seriously? Even if you don't need the cash, why not swap mortgage, and bump up your pension contributions - it would give you about another €2,000 in your pension, over the 5 years (assuming you are on the higher tax rate). I can't recall if Avant make a contribution to the cost of switching or not, but if they don't, the brokers will be getting paid 1% of your overall mortgage, if you switch through then, so ask for them to help cover the cost from their commission - most will negotiate, particularly if you give them the chance to also do your mortgage protection policy. While I'm not giving you specific advise, I also think that interest rates will stay low for a while, so you may so better going for the 7 year fixed, if you qualify for 1.95%. That would potentially save you closer to €2,500 gross. There's a list of the Avant approved brokers, here : https://www.avantmoney.ie/mortgages/brokers
Appreciate your advice Gar but the legal fees might not be too far short of the commission fee with where I'm hoping to be at when we fix. My wife would also lose free fees with AIB which on its own is probably about the saving on the mortgage so it doesn't make sense for us but hopefully this rate will save someone a lot of money, it's competitive with some rates around Europe which is never the case in ireland.
Slightly off topic but about switching, when I switched last year the difference in legal fees from the 3 people I contacted was quite large so best to shop around our fees all in were €950 (other quotes were €1200 and €1450) mad money for what was a 15 minute meeting. Obviously far more work on their side to earn the fee, but for us the saving huge as we didn’t need to do anything bar sign the documents