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Nine farm families will be affected by the sale of their Permanent TSB (PTSB) mortgages to Start Mortgages, a subsidiary of the US so-called vulture fund Lone Star.
A spokesperson for PTSB confirmed the figure, and stated that the majority would be of home loans that were not meeting loan requirements.
In total, 10,700 loans will be sold to Start Mortgages as part of the Project Glas portfolio, which is estimated to be worth €1.3bn. The average length of arrears is three and half years and the average arrears value stands at €28,800.
Fianna Fáil spokesperson for finance Michael McGrath has accused PTSB, which is 75% state-owned, of taking “the easy way out.”
“It would be much better if Permanent TSB dealt with the loans itself and made case by case decisions involving restructuring the loans, writing off debt in some cases and only taking enforcement action as a last resort,” McGrath said.
Regulation
It is estimated that up to 2,500 farm mortgages are held by vulture funds, with increased reports from the farming community of inflexibility on the part of vulture funds.
An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, responded to news of the loan sale by stating that new legislation would be enacted after the summer recess to help regulate vulture funds.
However, a question mark now hangs over the value of the proposed legislation, as Fianna Fáil TD Stephen Donnelly has highlighted that vulture funds could avail of a tax loophole to shield their financial involvement in Ireland.
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