Residential mortgage arrears numbers continue to fall

At the end of March 2016, there were 743,700 private residential mortgage accounts for principal dwellings (PDH) held in Ireland, to a value of €100.9 billion.

Of this total stock, 85,989 accounts were in arrears; a fall of 2,303 or 2.6 per cent over the quarter.

Some 59,696 accounts (8 per cent) were in arrears of more than 90 days, representing a fall of 3.6 per cent over the quarter.

Banks that were subject to the Central Bank’s public MART targets recorded a larger quarter-on-quarter decline of 3.9 per cent in the number of PDH accounts in arrears over 90 days.

The outstanding balance on all lenders’ PDH mortgage accounts in arrears of more than 90 days was over €11.9 billion at the end of March 2016, equivalent to 12 per cent of the total outstanding balance on all PDH mortgage accounts.

During the first quarter of 2016, legal proceedings were issued to enforce the debt/security on a PDH mortgage in 1,895 cases.

There were 706 cases where court proceedings concluded but arrears remained outstanding. In 277 cases, the Courts granted an order for repossession or sale of the property.

There were 1,760 properties in the banks’ possession at the beginning of the quarter. A total of 421 properties were taken into possession by lenders during the quarter, of which 139 were repossessed on foot of a Court Order, while the remaining 282 were voluntarily surrendered or abandoned. During the quarter 391 properties were disposed of.

The number of properties in possession at the end of the quarter was also impacted by reclassification issues and return of property affecting 6 PDH accounts. As a result, lenders were in possession of 1,784 PDH properties at the end of March 2016.