Mortgage arrears campaigner David Hall has warned “beware of Greeks bearing gifts” after vulture funds agreed to cooperate on troubled home loans.
The new deal means the State’s advisors in MABS (Money Advice and Budgeting Service) will be liaising with the vultures on behalf of clients.
But David Hall - head of the Irish Mortgage Holders Association - said the planned new arrangements will still benefit the vultures over families crippled with debt.
He said: “The last protocol destroyed the lives of many who ended up living in purgatory with no long-term certainty.
“It allowed banks to do what they wanted during a defined time frame without any guarantee of a long-term solution.
“Vultures don’t like some of the insolvency arrangements where, despite some recent high-profile cases, many ordinary families have gotten good insolvency arrangements approved.
“I welcome the recognition by the Banking Federation and MAB’s that more than 40,000 citizens are in crisis, a potential tsunami in any-one’s language.
“There is an old saying about the need to be wary of Greeks bearing gifts.
“Given that a previous MABs banking protocol disadvantaged debtors by placing them in short term arrangements where they had no certainty that is equally applicable today.”
Mr Hall is on of the leading campaigners working on the side of those getting fleeced by the vultures.
He went on: “I welcome anything which brings the possibility of hope, closure and certainty to the lives of those trapped in Mortgage Arrears.
“Anything which acts as a constraint on the untrammelled exploitation by vulture funds of vulnerable people is also to be welcomed.”
And Mr Hall said that it is welcome too that the vultures have agreed for the first time to engage more meaningfully back with the struggling mortgage holders.
Vulture funds buy loans from the banks in large tranches - the last one worth €850million was sold on by AIB last Thursday - and often act ruthlessly and evict families to get their hands on the houses to sell them off.
Now they have agreed to work with MABS going forward.
The new rules apply to borrowers who have already been through the Central Bank’s MARP (Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process) system without success and are entering the legal process.
They will involve official engagement between the borrower, MABS and the vulture fund where previously the borrowers were usually just ignored by the vultures.
