A COUPLE who had applied for the Government’s new mortgage-to-rent scheme in February lost their family home in the High Court yesterday.
The Dublin couple, who have two young daughters, had sought to have a case, taken against them by Stepstone Mortgage Funding Ltd, adjourned pending a response to their application to the mortgage-to-rent scheme. But the adjournment was denied by Mr Justice Daniel Herbert.
The mortgage-to-rent scheme, introduced at the beginning of the year, involves housing associations taking over unsustainable mortgages. Families remain in their homes and pay rent to the association. Part of the debt is written off by the lender.
Counsel for Stepstone Mortgages said the couple had borrowed €225,000 in 2007 and first defaulted in 2008. They now owed arrears of €40,000. Their income and expenditure was assessed and they had a “negative disposable income of €804 a month”. There was “no reality” to delaying the repossession, he said.
Counsel for the couple said the husband was a self-employed martial arts instructor but most of his income went toward paying rent at the gym where he worked. His wife was on disability benefit and looked after the children. The couple had applied to the mortgage-to-rent scheme in February, but had not heard if their application had been successful. There seemed to be delays in processing the applications, counsel said.
However, Mr Justice Herbert said the couple’s situation was “another one of these impossible cases”.
He said he would grant the order because otherwise things were “only going to get worse”.
“The sooner these people are rehoused by the local authority the better,” he said.
A couple with three young children from Athy, Co Kildare, also lost their home. Counsel for GE Capital Woodchester Homeloans Ltd said the couple had remortgaged their home in 2004, borrowing €212,000 with monthly repayments of €1,638. They fell behind and now owed arrears of €42,000.
The husband told the judge he had lost his job and that had caused them to fall behind. He was retraining to be a nurse and had just completed the first year of a four-year course. He thought he might be able to get work as a carer’s assistant in the short term. His wife was still working.
Mr Justice Herbert said the amount outstanding was probably more than the value of the property.
“There would be nothing left for these people if they sell and then they will need to be supported by the State,” he said.
He said he would be “making their lives more miserable” by not granting the order for possession. He gave a stay of execution of six months in “the hope something will happen”. GE Capital also had two further orders for possession of family homes.
