Ireland Financial News – Mortgages & Banking

Apartment owners will have a greater say in the management of their complexes under new legislation published today by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.The Multi-Unit Developments Bill 2009 outlines legal protections that will affect over 500,000 apartment owners in new and existing complexes.

The Bill will set new standards for the operation of management companies and new rules for developers who build apartments.

Fine Gael welcomed the Bill, but said it was long-overdue.

Measures in the Bill include developers having to set up an ‘Owners Management Company’ prior to the sale of apartments.

The latest index from Permanent TSB and the ESRI has shown that house prices fell by almost 2% last month.This brings prices back to levels not seen since the summer months in 2004.

It means that prices nationally have fallen by almost 5% in the first four months of this year.

The average price paid for a house nationally in April 2009 was €248,640, compared with €261,573 in December and a peak of €311,078 in February 2007.

Houses in the first-time buyer category are falling at the fastest rate, down 7.9% already this year.

Niall O’Grady of Permanent TSB said: ‘This is the fastest rate of decline in national prices that we have seen to date since the index started in 1996.

‘The particularly dramatic reduction in prices for first-time buyers reflects their reluctance to buy in a market that is still declining and where unsold properties are being reduced further’

The Revenue Commissioners has begun writing to tens of thousands of homeowners whose mortgage interest relief has been stopped.

In the April Budget the tax relief was limited to homeowners in the first seven years of their loans.

Revenue is now asking 134,000 homeowners to clarify when their loans started to establish whether the relief still applies to them.

Before last month’s budget around 560,000 people qualified for mortgage interest relief.

Half of those receiving it had the relief stopped, of these 154,000 have been deemed ineligible.

Homeowners who are in this category are asked to take no action until Revenue contacts them.

Homeowners will be able to update details on www.revenue.ie or through their local tax office.

AIB has increased its estimate of how much it will have to set aside to cope with bad loans this year to €4.3bn.In a trading update issued to the Irish Stock Exchange, the bank blamed the worsening economic conditions in Ireland for the bigger charge.

It also said mortgage arrears in Ireland were climbing and stood at 2% of total mortgage loans at the end of March, compared with 1.5% at the end of December.

However, AIB said that when the bad debt charges were excluded its trading profits so far this year were ahead of the same period last year.

The Church of Ireland Primate has criticised some bank directors and executives for indulging in unnecessarily high risk strategies in the current economic crisis and said they should consider their positions.Archbishop Alan Harper told church members there was an urgent need for a completely new ethic in international banking, based on a powerful regulatory system.

Church of Ireland finances were being discussed by members gathered in Armagh for the General Synod.

But it was the fallout from the global economic crisis that the Primate of All-Ireland turned his attention to.

Referring to the role played by bank directors and executives, Archbishop Alan Harper said it was not acceptable that high-risk strategies should be allowed to threaten the deposits of customers and the investments of shareholders.

He said those in charge of financial institutions who were responsible for the economic crisis should consider their positions.

He also called for a new ethic internationally to replace the flawed economic ethics of the past.

There was a lively debate on education issues on both sides of the border.

Synod members expressed their anger about the implications for the financing of Protestant secondary schools in the Republic in areas such as Cork arising from changes introduced in the October budget.

The Synod concludes tomorrow, the first time it has been held over a weekend.

It has emerged that 57,000 people currently receiving mortgage interest relief will no longer be entitled to it from tomorrow.
Read the full Revenue statement

For more information from Revenue
According to the Revenue Commissioners, as of the end of last year, there were 562,000 people receiving mortgage interest relief.

However the entitlement is to be suspended from 1 May for everyone except first-time buyers.

The move follows the announcement by the Government in it is supplementary Budget to limit mortgage interest relief to seven years.

Last night Opposition parties in the Dáil accused the Government of creating confusion over the issue.

Under the new system the tax relief on monthly mortgage interest payments will only apply for the first seven years after someone buys a property for use as their home.

According to the Revenue Commissioners, the move means mortgage interest relief will be suspended for 321,000 of the 562,000 people currently receiving the entitlement.

Of those, Revenue says 57,000 people will definitely no longer be entitled to it.

It says it is in the process of working with mortgage lenders in establishing who is and who is not entitled to the relief.

Mortgage holders who have the relief suspended but are entitled to continue to receive it will have it reactivated in June, all arrears included.

220,000 first time buyers will not be affected by tomorrow’s move and will continue to receive the entitlement.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has said that this afternoon’s Budget will not be easy for anyone, but that it will be fair.Mr Lenihan is to announce the details of the Budget, which is expected to impose extra taxes and spending cuts worth around €3.5bn.

The Cabinet will meet in Government Buildings this morning for a final discussion on the Budget, but at this stage the decisions have already been taken.

After ten sessions, Ministers hope they have a package that can start the recovery of the national finances and will commend itself to the public and the international markets.

Last night, Minister Lenihan said the tax base had declined dramatically and has to be repaired.

He said everyone will make some contribution, though those who have the most will pay the most.

Mr Lenihan is keenly aware that taking too much money out of the economy could create a deflationary spiral, while not taking enough may lead international markets to doubt the Government’s resolve.

The Budget is expected to set out a three- to four-year framework for restoring the public finances.

House prices in the North have dropped by nearly 30% over the last year, according to a new quarterly survey.It confirmed 2008 was the worst year for the housing market since the start of the 1980s.

The figures were contained in the latest University of Ulster Quarterly house price index, produced in partnership with the Bank of Ireland and the Housing Executive.

The survey showed prices had fallen by just over 28% in 2008.

It also confirmed the continuing low volume of house sales, with 704 transactions recorded in October, November and December, a figure just slightly up on the previous quarter’s report of 670.

The authors said the drop was no surprise and argued that it came with the silver lining that homes were becoming more affordable for first-time buyers.

The sharp decline confirms the downward trend of recent years.

But the drop followed a period when Northern Ireland house prices rocketed over a very short period of time.

The survey, billed as the most broadly-based of those undertaken in Northern Ireland, covers approximately 120 estate agents and records all open-market transactions.

It showed the overall average price of a house in the final quarter of 2008 was £168,185 – a drop of 16.6% on the third quarter.

Some property types saw greater falls than others.

The sharpest drop was in detached bungalows, down almost 35%over the year to an average of £218,216.

Terraced or town houses fell by 28% to an average of £134,905.

In Belfast the average price of housing at £178,399 showed a 20.9% annual decline, indicating that it did better than the overall Northern Ireland market.

 The property website daft.ie has reported that rents fell by almost 12% in the past year.

The average rent nationally now stands at €885, down from €1,000 in the same period last year.

The report says 10,000 new properties come to the market every month, meaning that the total number of properties available to rent in the country at any one time is 20,000.

South County Dublin was the area most affected by falling rents, with an average 1% decline over last year to an average rent of €1,386 a month.

Cork and Limerick saw a fall of 10%, while rents in Galway and Waterford fell by 6% and 4% respectively. The fall in rents outside major cities was 8%.

The daft.ie report predicts that average rents could fall by another 20% this year.

Former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick was given tens of millions worth of sterling and dollar loans, it has emerged.

Irish Nationwide gave tens of millions worth of sterling and dollar loans to Mr FitzPatrick as part of his loan transfers between the two institutions to conceal up to €122 million in borrowings from Anglo Irish.

The Irish Times reports that Irish Nationwide provided Mr FitzPatrick with loans of $56 million and £14 million on 26 September, 2007.

The building society also reportedly loaned the then Anglo Irish chairman $26 million on 27 September, 2006 with an undertaking from Anglo Irish that it would repay the loan if Seán FitzPatrick could not.

The report says that these borrowings form only part of Mr FitzPatrick’s loans from Irish Nationwide in 2007, as Anglo Irish Bank said last month that he had repaid €122 million.

Seán FitzPatrick borrowed from Irish Nationwide over eight years, drawing loans before Anglo Irish’s accounting year-end on 30 September, and repaying them within days with fresh loans from Anglo.

By transferring the loans, the Irish Times says, Mr FitzPatrick hid them from the bank’s auditors and shareholders.

The Financial Regulator and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement are investigating Mr FitzPatrick’s loans.