Pricewatch

Payment protection insurance. Can you get a refund?

Conor Pope — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 10:31:04 +0000

There have been more than 340,000 payment protection insurance policies sold in Ireland over the last five years.

Many of these policies will have been mis-sold to people.

Common reasons why you may have been mis-sold a PPI policy include

If uou are under 18 or over 65
If you work less than 16 hours a week
If you are self-employed or unemployed
If you have pre-existing medical conditions
If you are on contract or temporary work
If you were told that taking such a policy out would help you get the loan approved.

If you think you have been mis-sold a payment protection insurance policy, you should take the following steps:

First and most obviously find out if you have a PPI policy. Check your statements to see if there are any deductions that you can’t explain. It may not be listed separately so it is also worth ringing your lender to ask.
If you have one you will need to write to your lender asking for the following documents:
A signed copy of any consent or application form
A copy of all fact-find completed by the salesperson and all the contemporaneous file notes they may have taken at the time.
Ask what the cost of the policy is and what total you have paid to date
Ask for a copy of the PPI policy document you were sold and any explanatory notes

Address the letter to the compliance officer reporting to the Central Bank.

If a lender refuses your request for a refund the next step is to lodge a complaint with the Financial Services Ombudsman for arbitration.
Financial Ombudsman’s Bureau
3rd Floor
Lincoln House
Lincoln Place
Dublin 2
Lo-call 1890 882 090
Tel: 01 662 0899
Fax: 01 662 0890
Email: enquiries@financialombudsman.ie

Our banks are broken on almost every level

Conor Pope — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:06:24 +0000

I was contacted recently by a reader who had a story which, I think, reflects the rotten state of the Irish personal banking sector. She has been with National Irish Bank for 20 years, has never had an unauthorised overdraft, defaulted on a loan, run up a massive credit card debt or behaved in any kind of financially reckless fashion. All her wages go directly into this account every month and have done since the early 1990s.

She is, in short, a very good customer.

She has decided to take voluntary redundancy and leave a job she has had for more than 25 years and in two weeks time she will be getting a large lump sum which, again, will be lodged with NIB.

She went into her branch in the west of Ireland last week and asked if she could have a temporary €3,000 overdraft to pay for some education related bills that had fallen due. The branch staff member, who she was on first name terms with, seemed to think it would be no problem as the sum requested was small, she had always kept her account in good standing and had a letter of guarantee from her current employer stating that her redundancy would be deposited in her NIB account within weeks.

Despite being a loyal customer, NIB, in its infinite wisdom and/or absolute paranoia, insisted she jump through all sorts of hoops during the loan application process. She had to bring in utility bills, proof of identity, proof of address – that kind of thing. She did all that was asked of her and when the application process was complete she was told that all decision making powers had been taken away from local branches and her application would have to go for approval to a loan committee in Dublin.

This, remember was for a €3000 very, very short term overdraft for a very long-standing and solid customer.

The loan committee refused the application on the grounds that “it doesn’t do bridging finance”. She will get by and in weeks she will have her lump some and a new job so she is not too put out. It is, however, she says “a slap in the face”. It is also a reflection of how scared our banks our and how incapable this fear has made them. The branch had no flexability and no common sense was applied to the application. I am sure there are thousands of stories like this out there. I would like to hear some…

Sky high saving…

Conor Pope — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:47:54 +0000

I was contacted a couple of hours ago by a SKY customer who wants to get rid of her eircom landline but is afraid that if she does she will lose her TV signal. I actually thought she might be right but Twitter tells me no. While you do need a phone line for Sky multi-room, you don’t if you just want a single box. Not having a landline means she won’t be able to access some of the interactive features on Sky but everything else should work as normal. Given that she is paying 40 quid a month for a telephone service she never uses and is in her mid-20s, by the time she hits 80, she will have saved herself more than €25,000 by simply cancelling the landline.

Is Greyhound the worst service provider in Ireland?

Conor Pope — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:06:45 +0000

Several weeks ago Greyhound came uninvited into my life. The relationship, so far, has not been problem free.

First they sent me a calendar of collection dates which saw my bin day move from Wednesday to Tuesday. No problem there.

So like everyone in else in my neighbourhood, I dutifully put my bins out on a Monday night. They were not collected the following morning. Or at any point on the Tuesday. It was quite late on Wednesday afternoon by the time the rubbish was taken away. When people (not me) complained about delays, Greyhound dismissed their concerns and said that people had obviously misread the calendar. It was, it claimed, blameless.

Dublin city councillors would probably disagree and representatives of all parties have said they have been inundated with complaints from people whose bins had not been collected since Greyhound began operating the service and have described the new operation as disastrous.

Making contact with the company is, in my limited experience at any rate, not a pleasant experience. Trying to get recycle bin bags from Greyhound over recent weeks has been next to impossible. I ring, they say they are being sent out. They are not sent out so I ring again. And they say they are being sent out. And they are not sent out so I ring again. And on it goes.

They have told people in my neighbourhood (but not everyone) that they will no longer collect tagged bin bags because of some class of risk to bin collectors from the bags. There may or may not be a risk from sharp objects but it seems unlikely that the council would have wilfully put their staff at risk for the last five decades if there was.

Today is Thursday. Every house on my street put their rubbish out on Monday night. None of the bins have yet been collected by Greyhound.

The company is also threatening not to collect the bins of 18,000 would-be customers from today if they have not signed contracts with the firm.

To say “a hames” has been made of the transfer of waste collection from the council to a private operator is putting it mildly.

The thing is I would imagine any company entering a new market would try and impress peole, at least in the early days, by being super efficient and customer focussed. If this is Greyhound at its best, can you imagine what they will be like a year from now?

Rubbish.

Where has all the old money gone?

Conor Pope — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:34:46 +0000

Irish consumers who are strapped for cash might want to look behind sofas and rifle through the pockets of little-worn suits in search of some of the €361m worth of punts that were never exchanged for euro after the old currency ceased to be legal tender a decade ago.

Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of the formal demise of the punt and the Central Bank confirmed that the latest figures, which have yet to be published, show that hundreds of millions euro worth of the old currency remain unaccounted for.
Despite the passage of time, the old money is, however, still coming in and an average of more than ¤10,000 worth of punts was brought into the bank to be exchanged every working day last year and a Central Bank spokesman told me that not a day passed without at least one person calling into to its Dame St offices to swap the old for the new.
On January 1st 2002 the Republic became one of seven euro-zone countries to convert all ATMs to euros and within days of the introduction of the new notes and coins, the vast majority of cash payments were being made in euro as Irish people adopted their new currency with gusto.
Some six weeks later, on February 9th, the punt stopped being legal tender and overnight the only place it could be exchanged was the Central Bank.
The bank said yesterday it could not give out information about exactly how many punts were being exchanged daily because of what he said were security concerns, but in 2011, a total of €2.6m worth of the old currency was exchanged at the bank’s Dame St office, an average of €10,317 every day. Some €2.3 of the punts exchanged were notes with the remainder being made up of a variety of coins.
Despite this stream of money coming in, the Central Bank said that by the end of 2011 there was still €236m in Irish banknotes missing while €125.2 million worth of coins remained unaccounted for.
The good news for punt-hoarding consumers is there is no time-limit for people to cash in their old money. The Central Bank said yesterday that it would continue to accept the money indefinitely with the exchange rate permanently frozen at 2002 levels.
Some people chose an alternative route and a lot of old cash goes through auctioneer John Weldon’s hands and he regularly holds Irish currency sales at his Temple Bar auction house.
While some Irish pounds which feature the smiling face of Lady Lavery are worth a whole lot more than face value, there has been no appreciation of the Robert Ballagh designed notes, which first appeared in 1993, Mr Weldon said.
“Lady Lavery notes from the early 1970s are highly sought and a complete collection of these notes, including from the 10 shilling note to the 100 pound note sold here recently for €950,” he said.
According to the auctioneer, the most sought after Irish note of modern times date from 1943, the first year the Irish currency was issued by theCentral Bank – prior to that Free State notes had the stamp of the Currency Commision. A 1943 half-crown can fetch anywhere between €300 and €1,500 depending on the condition of the note and the level of interest among collectors.
When asked if consumers in possession of Ballagh-punts might consider taking a punt on their future worth by hanging on to them in case they would eventually grow to be worth this kind of money, Mr Weldon said it would be a long time before collectors would be prepared to pay above face value for the old new money.

The best sites for clickmas

Conor Pope — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 10:54:47 +0000

’TIS THE season to be clever and the cleverest people will be doing at least some, if not all, of their Christmas shopping online. But with hundreds of thousands of websites touting for business and just a handful of big players hoovering up most of that business, it can be hard to find your way to the best, most unusual and best-value gifts.

Last week, we asked readers to recommend the sites they favoured and they came back with dozens of suggestions, some of which we had heard about and others which are soon to become the first port of call for all our Christmas shopping needs.

And before you say it, we do know that there are 41 sleeps until the big day and that Pricewatch is frequently to be found railing against the early-onset of good cheer but when it comes to shopping online, it is important to get it over with early.

While many Irish sites – and some international ones – have a very quick turnaround and can deliver to you within days of buying, the simplest thing is to shop early so you don’t spend Christmas week fretting and sweating about all those gifts which have yet to arrive. Inevitably the big players in e-tailing such as amazon.com, play.com and even ebay.com are going to be popular again with Irish shoppers over the coming weeks, but for the truly original present, you may need to cast your net wider.

NOTONTHEHIGHSTREET.COM

This UK-based site has a bewildering array of cute and kitsch gifts, suitable for everyone in the family. It is not a single shop but a portal for scores of online retailers (not all of whom deliver to Ireland). There is a Reclaimed Comic Decoupage chair for just under €400, but if a chair decorated with cut-outs from old comics (decoupage) is not for you, the site has thousands of other gifts, from less than a fiver to several thousand euro which you will not find on the High Street. We were particularly taken with the “30 best gifts” for him or her. It could make you look like the cleverest most thoughtful person in the world. .

ETSY.COM

This is not any old website. It is an online crafts marketplace which cares about more than just money. Its stated aim is to “enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers” and wants “to build a new economy and present a better choice”. We like the sound of that and we like that it has over 11 million registered users across 150 countries and at any one time is selling over 10 million items much of which is beautifully eclectic.

FIREBOX.COM

If you think your nearest and dearest is secretly pining for a motorised golf ball cleaner, Isotoner SmarTouch gloves (which allow you to use your touch screen phone without taking off your gloves) or a Darth Vader Lego mini-figure alarm clock, then look no further. There are also tents that look like VW camper vans (to confuse people at Electric Picnic next year), underwater disco lightshows and crooked tree houses, making this site one of the most wonderfully ridiculous online retailers we have ever come across. Prices range from less than €5 to more than €15,000 so there should be something to suit all tastes and budgets. The site says it scours the world looking for the “next big thing” and sells it before it makes it to the mass market. “It is our mission to always be first with the latest hot stuff,” they say, which is nice to know.

HAIRYBABY.COM

We love Hairy Baby. There are not many online retailers that can make us laugh but this is one and it has done so on more than one occasion. And all it does is sell T-shirts. Hilarious T-shirts that no-one outside of Ireland would find remotely funny or even understand. Our favourites right now? “Where’s Granddad?”, “Who said mass?”, “Who’s Taking the Horse to France” and “A1 Sharon” (but that’s just because The Snapper was on the telly last week). If you have never checked this site out then all we can say is you need to right that wrong as soon as you can.

TOFFS.COM

If all you want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague away kit then look no further than this site. Obviously football strips are not everyone’s thing but they are popular and going down this route for a gift will create the impression that you’re at least thinking outside the box. It sells replica jerseys from days gone by – we’re told that Manchester United’s 1968 European Cup winning team kit is very popular. The site is to be commended for not limiting itself to English football and if you want to find a 1950s Shamrock Rovers jersey or a Waterford United kit from the 1960s, you’ll find them here.

BRANDALLEY.CO.UK

Boom-time presents at bust-time prices – that’s the promise made by this members-only sale site offering designer clobber at knock-down prices. You have to register for Brand Alley but in return for your personal details you can save up to 70 per cent on designer clothes, beauty, shoes and homeware. Its sales last for just a few days and not everything is great, by a long shot, but patient trawling could see you score an amazing present on the cheap.

MIMITOYS.IE

An Irish site, this was set up in 2004 by a couple who were struggling to find good quality wooden toys which were fun and educational for babies, toddlers and preschool children. In the intervening years, the site has grown and now offers a host of creative and engaging toys for a wider age range. There are dolls’ houses, play kitchens, construction toys and train sets, arts and crafts, books and puzzles, bikes and rocking horses. Toys are categorised by age and developmental skills making it easy if you want a toy to help with a child’s reading, co-ordination or social skills.

IWANTONEOFTHOSE.COM

We love this site as it contains completely mental things which we never realised we wanted – or knew existed – until we stopped by. There’s a portable iPhone charger with enough back-up power for up to five hours of calls for less than €20, Pac Man soap-on-a- rope and a Sound Asleep Pillow which has a speaker buried deep inside which is inaudible to anyone except the dozer. As we sat looking at the new electronic banking version of Monopoly on our desk, we came across Nostalgia Monopoly on the site. A replica of the original gameboard from one of the first editions of the game, it has vintage-looking components, a built-in banker’s tray and a visual history of the decades. We want one.

GIFTSLIKETHESE.COM

This site stresses that it’s the thought that counts and, luckily, they have put all the thought into it so you don’t have to. It was set up by two Cork sisters and has all manner of hilarious, ridiculous and very clever gifts, some of which are very good value. Last year we were taken by the possibly blasphemous salt and pepper grinders in the shape of some rather well known religious figures and while they are still for sale, they have been joined by hundreds of other presents that will wow you and make you laugh in equal measure.

THISISWHYIMBROKE.COM

This is not a shop but an online magazine “run by a few geeky ladies and gentlemen” who have too much time internet shopping so they can point you towards a “wide array of cool, fun, useful, and unique products”. The company’s philosophy is simple “we only want to display cool things you can buy on the web. When you visit ThisIsWhyImBroke, you’ll always see unique products that our staff was so fond of we felt it needed to be shared with you the viewer. Many items listed on this site do return a small commission for product referral, however this is not the sole motivation for posting certain items.” Fair enough.

ALLGIFTS.IE

This Irish-owned site sells gift vouchers as well as gifts which might make it useful if you’re buying for someone who has everything. Because the site is local, sourcing “experience gifts” such as massages, hotel stays and spa treatments is easy and the range of Christmas hampers looks impressive.

STRAWBERRYNET.COM

Cosmetics for a fraction of the prices charged in Ireland. This site sells skincare, make-up and perfumes from brands such as Lancôme, Aveda, Redkin, Estée Lauder and Calvin Klein. The products are shipped from Asia so there is a good chance you’ll be hit for VAT and excise duty, which might take some of the gloss off the savings.

SCIENCEGALLERY.COM/SHOP

This is the online shop belonging to the Science Gallery in Dublin so it must sell a lot of gifts that only a physicist could love, right? Wrong. This site is brilliant. It has bloodbath shower gel (red shower gel in a blood bag), incredibly funky looking toys and ornaments, a range of telescopes and dozens of other high and low brow gifts at prices which looked pretty competitive to us.

BOOHOO.COM

This is one of the UK’s leading online fashion stores and has all manner of catwalk-inspired women’s fashions at prices which are hard to beat on the High Street. It ships from the UK and charges in euro at – wait for this – the actual market rate. So if something costs £20 then it will cost €23.50. Marks Spencer and Tesco and the like could learn a thing or two about exchange rates from these people.

GIFTGENIES.COM

The gift genies are great. They sift through hundreds of websites, work out what is hot and what is not and then draw up lists of presents for boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, children, friends, colleagues and, um, mistresses (we are assured this category was kind of intended as a joke). The site does not actually sell anything but it will give you thousands of ideas you will never have had. It also works out what sites deliver to Ireland saving you the bother.

GEEKSTORE.IE

It does exactly what it says on the tin. You want cool little gadgets? You’ll find them here. On the homepage when we visited, the key products included a “speck fitted cookie camo iPhone 4 case, a world scratch map, and a griffin loop for the iPad.

KNOCKKNOCK.BIZ

Are you an annoying person? Are you trying to buy a present for an annoying person? Then this might well be the site for you. It has a whole category devoted to annoying people. And another one for lovers and one for kids and friends and partners. In short, it has presents for everyone in your life.

SHOPCREATOR. COM /MALL/NATIONALGALLERYOFIRELAND

It’s art innit. The official online shop of the National Gallery of Ireland has some wonderful books and prints for sale. We also liked the look of the children’s books. Very good quality and not a Barbie adventure in sight. Result!

BCOOL.IE

Fashion contact lenses? Check. A tankbot? Check. An arcade machine alarm clock? Check. This site may not have a huge amount of stock but what it sells is unusual and, if you choose wisely, you might find yourself with a present which has serious wow factor. The site seems pretty cheap too.

ANNIEWEST.COM/SHOP

Pricewatch has actually paid cold hard cash for Annie West prints and we have been happy to do so for three reasons: they are hilarious, beautifully drawn and incredibly smart. All the collector’s edition prints are limited to 50, made to order by Giclée specialists and are supplied unframed.

JNWINE.COM

Who wouldn’t love wine as a present? This UK-based site has many wines you might struggle to find closer to home. It delivers to the Republic, unlike many wine sellers based overseas, and readers have sung its praises.

Governments don’t rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules the world.

Conor Pope — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:36:15 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

This interview was carried on the BBC yesterday and in less than 24 hours has been watched by a quarter of a million people. It is jaw-dropping and terrifying and makes me want to reach into the computer, drag the trader out by his, no doubt, hideously expensive tie, and punch him in the face over and over and over again. Now, maybe he is right, maybe Goldman Sachs (and all the other funds) do rule the world and are set on destroying the lives of milions of people so they can make even more money but surely a huge tax on traders’ profits introduced across the world immediately would soften their cough and restore the balance between the markets and the State? It’s not going to happen, however… And in any event, if this guy is right and the savings of millions of people are set to be wiped out in less than 12 months, it is probably too late to act now.

News evokes sadness but not surprise

Conor Pope — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:56:30 +0000

THE NEWS that the receivers have been called in to Superquinn will be greeted with shock and sadness by many Irish people who have held an affection for the retailer almost since the moment the ebullient Feargal Quinn opened the doors of his first shop in Dundalk in 1960.

Thanks to its media-savvy founder – who consistently emphasised the importance of customer service and quality above almost everything else – Superquinn grew into more than just another place to do the weekly shop.

However, good vibes aside, it has struggled in the brave new world of Irish grocery retailing.

This new world is one in which Tesco has been able to go from nowhere to undisputed market leader in a decade and one which has seen the German retailers Lidl and Aldi convince some initially dubious shoppers of their discounted and sometimes bizarrely eclectic charms.

It wasn’t just the presence of canoes and blowtorches alongside the cornflakes which won people over to the discounters – their growth was also aided by a huge shift in the economic fortunes of many which forced them to be a lot less picky about where they bought their groceries.

While it will continue to trade as normal and although the receivers have expressed confidence that they will be able to sell it as a going concern, it may well be the end of the road for the Superquinn that has won a place in people’s hearts.

There may be shock and there may be sadness but there can’t be much surprise. Much to the concern of its 2,800 employees, it has been the subject of ongoing takeover speculation for more than two years, with Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Asda often identified as potential overseas buyers and Dunnes Stores and Musgraves touted as the most likely local suitors.

It repeatedly denied it was for sale but keen market watchers were unconvinced and the rumours persisted.

It’s not long since the last takeover. Quinn, displaying remarkable prescience, sold it for about €450 million to Select Retail Holdings more than five years ago. Almost as soon as the ink dried on that contract, the difficulties started.

In 2009, it shed 400 jobs and closed a store in Dundalk while in February it announced it was to close its Naas branch with a loss of 100 jobs. It has also lost a host of senior executives in recent months including its chairman Simon Burke.

The most recent Irish grocery market share data published by industry analysts Kantar Worldpanel covers the 12 weeks up to April 17th. It painted a deeply troubling picture for Superquinn.

Lidl and Aldi – the fifth and sixth largest retailers in the State – performed strongly as did top dog, Tesco. The market share of Dunnes and Supervalu was steady but Superquinn suffered and saw its sales fall by 5 per cent and its market share fall half a point to 6.4 per cent. This put it in real danger of losing its top-four slot.

Despite Quinn’s mantra that quality and customer service were key, it looks like it has ultimately come down to hard cash. Select Retail Holdings is said to be saddled with debts of €400 million. It has struggled to overcome the perception – which is not always borne out by reality – that their supermarket is the upmarket choice.

While such a label was all well and good during the good times, in an increasingly price-sensitive Ireland, such a tag was the last thing any supermarket needed.

How to get rid of an impossible mortgage

Conor Pope — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:55:31 +0000

THE BANKS ARE coming down hard on people who do not repay their loans, but some experts say many of those loans should never have been given in the first place. This means that ultimately the banks will have no choice but to forgive the debt, although they are unlikely to admit that they are doing so.

Examples of boom-time lending practices are emerging now. A quantity surveyor with a salary of €40,000 was given mortgages for five investment properties, the last of which cost six times his salary.

“There were some extraordinary things going on. Someone in this situation should never have been approved for such a level of credit,” says Eamon Curley, a former banker who specialises in helping small investors to sort out their investment problems. He works for small businesses and small-scale property investors.

“The first loan was okay and maybe the second, but the other three were ridiculous. That gives him a chance to negotiate with the bank,” says Curley.

And that is where he comes in. He takes a forensic look at the documentation and if he finds errors or proof that internal rules were not applied properly when processing loans, then he can play hardball with the banks.“Very frequently the banks messed up,” he says.

“[Now] they look at the credit reports that were prepared ahead of a loan being sanctioned and, if the money should not have been signed off on in the first place, they will quite often come to their senses ahead of instigating any costly legal proceedings.

“Banks are undoubtedly writing off debt. Some are still in denial, but most have made provision for bad debts.”

Some banks want it both ways. They write off the debts on their balance sheets but continue to pursue the borrower through the courts for the money owed. Such moves have come in for severe criticism by the judiciary in recent months, however.

Curley describes the 12-month moratorium on repossessions as a purely political devices. “What is going to change in 12 months? It is pushing everything back while the bank is still adding interest to the money owed,” he says.

In the US, there are two common approaches at the moment: returning the keys, which is popularly known as jingle mail, or making a short sale.

A short sale plays out as follows: Imagine you have a property you bought for €200,000 with a deposit of €20,000. You have had it for five years and have an outstanding debt of €170,000. Properties in your complex are now selling for €100,000 and you have a buyer who is willing to pay that much. Your lender allows you to sell and takes the €100,00. It puts a black mark against your credit rating for no more than two years and that is the end of the story.

That is not what happens in Ireland. Here the bank may allow you to sell the property for €100,000, but it can then pursue you for the other €70,000. This has effectively stopped people selling when in negative equity.

The US system can lead to a much sharper crash in prices and can make the banks much more careful about to whom they lend their money too, but recovery is faster.

“It would have to be better than the slow death we are witnessing,” Curley says.

Solicitor Anthony Joyce is the mortgage man of the moment after he managed to remove a massive millstone from around the necks of one Dublin couple. The solicitor helped his clients to negotiate a reduction in their mortgage of more than €200,000.

They secured a reduction in their mortgage debt to Stepstone Mortgages from €360,000 to €154,950 last November. They lost their home but have been able to rid themselves of the huge debt they could not repay by finding a buyer for the house.

According to Joyce, banks are proving increasingly “practical and willing to work with customers who are financially devastated”. On his advice, the couple put their house on the market for less than properties were going for in the area, and got a buyer pretty quickly.

They then went to Stepstone and suggested that it could take the money, or it could repossess the house, put it on the market and wait maybe six months to a year to get a buyer, by which time the value of the property probably would have fallen further.

Stepstone Mortgages agreed to the deal. Joyce says the couple’s credit history is in tatters. “They will probably never get a mortgage again, but it means they can begin to get on with their lives.” Joyce has between 20 and 30 clients who are in a similar position, he says.

The most unfortunate are those who “have split up and hate each other but are still living under the same roof because they are in negative equity so can’t sell their houses and can’t get on with their lives,” he says.

The Stepstone case was a positive outcome for all, he says. “The bank wins because they don’t have to wait for two or three years and pay all the legal fees. The couple wins because they get rid of the house and can get on with their lives and we win because we got our fee,” he says.

Such results can breathe life into a property market that has slipped from stagnation into rigor mortis. As the Space/Allsop auctions of distressed properties have shown, there are people who can buy once prices get to a certain level. Stephen McCarthy, the managing director of Space/Allsop, has been involved in this aspect of the industry for a couple of years now and is well placed to assess what banks are doing. “The banks are not writing off debts left by the sale of a house but they are not aggressively pursuing them either,” he says.

“There is no one answer, and the banks are taking it on a case-by-case basis but no bank is engaged in widespread debt forgiveness.

“If you sell as a co-operative seller, without a receiver being appointed, the banks are saying they will take that into account but no one is giving any guarantees. The last outcome the banks want is to get a house back. I am dealing with these banks all the time and they do not want to take the houses.”

He says that distressed property auctions have shown the banks that there is an active market at prices that might make them more inclined to deal with individual homeowners.

McCarthy says returning the keys to the lender is growing in popularity in Ireland but walking away is rarely the best option.

“If a person bought a house, then they obviously wanted it at some stage,” he says. “But now they can’t pay the full mortgage, for whatever reason, so they want to walk away. But they have to live somewhere so they would be better off paying something and staying in the property.”

Go the f*ck to sleep!

Conor Pope — Wed, 18 May 2011 07:44:01 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

This might just be my favourite thing. Ever. This, um children’s book, has reached number one on Amazon’s bestseller charts this week even though it won’t be published for another month. And it’s not hard to see why. It may be a little (okay a lot) profane for a bedtime read, but any parent will be able to relate to ‘Go the Fuck to Sleep’, an illustrated plea to a trying infant who is using all the weapons in their arsenal to avoid going to sleep. A bootleg PDF version of the book has been in circulation for months now and has gone completely viral – the authors of the book are unlikely to be overly concerned about the PDF books s there have been over 100,000 pre-orders made already. The good people at storyful have the full story…