Donegal Deputy Pearse Doherty will today bringing legislation to the Dáil to crack down on vulture funds to stop them selling family homes.
His proposal is a ‘No Consent, No Sale’ guarantee introduced where a bank cannot sell a home loan without the permission of the mortgage holder.
This is already part of a voluntary Code of Practice on mortgages for the banks, but they are not bound by it.
The new law will make it mandatory for all banks and financial institutions operating here.
It is part of a new nationwide campaign against the vultures.
Deputy Doherty said: “In November of last year, a State-owned bank that had been bailed out by the Irish people (Permanent TSB), brazenly announced that it was selling over 6,000 family home loans to an unknown entity.
“This was a new low in Irish banking- these loans were meeting their arrangement.
“They were being thrown to the vultures despite doing the right thing of engaging and making a permanent arrangement with the bank.
“It is fundamentally unfair and I believe unacceptable to most Irish people – yet the Government and Central Bank will not act to stop it.
“Our bill, which will be introduced tomorrow, simply puts into law the Code of Practice the Central Bank itself wrote in the nineties.
“The Code is voluntary which means it is not issued under Section 117 of the Central Bank Act.
“Indeed, as we saw from Permanent TSB the bankers don’t even know of its existence – that is about to change.
“In the last Dáil, Minister Michael Noonan told Paschal Donohue TD (now Minister for Finance himself) with regard to the Code of Practice on the Transfer of Mortgages that: ‘Notwithstanding its voluntary nature, I expect that best practice dictates that the Code be applied by all institutions to all classes of residential property’.
“That was only six years ago, so what has changed and why?
“This Bill marks a start in Sinn Féin’s campaign to defeat the vultures and end the arrears crisis.”
Mr Doherty was joined at a briefing for TDs in Leinster House yesterday by iCare Housing CEO David Hall, and Social Democrats election candidate Carly Bailey, whose mortgage was sold to a Vulture.
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