Permanent TSB chief says mortgage debt write offs will be applied in some cases

About 20,000 mortgages relating to private dwellings are in arrears of 90 days or more with PTSB. Chief executive Jeremy Masding said that in the first four months of this year, standard financial statements had been completed by 11,400 customers, with 9,200 of these put on some form of "treatment" to address their financial difficulties. The balance remain in the system.

These treatments include split mortgages, where part of the mortgage is warehoused by the bank for a period during which customers would only make payments on the balance of the loan.

Speaking to the media after an acrimonious agm, Mr Masding said another 800 buy-to-let mortgages had also been placed on a treatment plan.

About 2,500 buy-to-lets have so far been dealt with by the bank. In 1,700 of these cases, it has managed to identify the “right party contact” who is responsible for repaying the mortgage. This suggests that there are 800 cases where there is doubt about who is responsible for repaying the loan.

Some level of surrender
Mr Masding acknowledged that there would be some level of surrender by owners of buy-to-let properties but declined to quantify this.

He estimated that it would take the bank 12-18 months (February this year being the starting point) to get through all its mortgage arrears cases.

Earlier, under questioning from financial adviser Brendan Burgess, Mr Masding said there would be debt write-offs for some mortgage customers.

“There will be cases where the outstanding debt will be written off.

“However, it has to be at the end of an engagement where the customers have worked with us,” he said.

“With my CEO hat on, my responsibility is not to dilute the capital base of the bank unless that is the right thing to do.”

Mr Masding said mortgage debt write-offs had already been applied by the bank in some cases but he declined to say how many, as it was “commercially sensitive” information.

Chairman Alan Cook told shareholders that the PTSB was back lending again after a couple of years of flux.

Competing
"This year we aim to approve lending for up to nine times as much as we lent last year and we are competing for mortgage business, car finance, educational loans and the like," he said.

PTSB achieved lending of between €70 million and €90 million last year.

In addition, Mr Cook said the bank has grown its deposits by more than €500 million so far this year.

Non-executive director Piotr Skoczylas was voted off the board. In a poll of shareholders, 99.9 per cent voted against his re-election. Minister for Finance Michael Noonan exercised his 99.2 per cent shareholding against Mr Skoczylas's re-election.

Mr Skoczylas has been involved in litigation relating to a number of individual directors of PTSB.