Fears of rising repossessions have been sparked as Irish politicians discuss a bill to clear up gaps in existing housing legislation.
The Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill 2013 seeks to remedy a legal problem which arose from a High Court judgment in 2011. The decision made it difficult for mortgage providers to obtain orders of possession on mortgages created before 1 December 2009 unless court proceedings had started before that date.
Ireland’s repossession rates are relatively low, currently standing at 0.25 per cent compared to three per cent in Britain and up to five per cent in the US. However, the brutal logic of capital spoke through the voice of Central Bank governor and head of the financial regulator, Patrick Honohan, last month: “[if] the banks were unable to make repossessions then the incentive for the borrower to cooperate would be greatly weakened.”
He warned that “the banks need to address the problem of non-performing mortgage debt more energetically. The time for passivity is long past”.
As Independent TD, Stephen Donnelly has said, it is an “ugly truth” that repossessions must rise.
Although drafting the original 2009 legislation, Fianna Fáil is now opposing the new bill. Its finance spokesperson, Michael McGrath, warned that the change could see repossessions in the tens of thousands, and predicted that banks would repossess homes where the mortgage had been substantially paid off, rather than those deep in negative equity.
Repossessions strike a deep chord in a country where collective memory remains of mass evictions by absentee landlords in the 19th century. In the case of Seamus Sherlock, a farmer on the Kerry-Limerick border, locals are maintaining 24-hour watch around the barricaded property to prevent any eviction. One neighbour described the moral economy in which homes are for living in, as opposed to the capitalist idea that sees them only in terms of rent or debt: “He’s in trouble because of the bankers... there’s one law for the bankers and another for the ordinary people.”
We need a mass movement to put pressure on banks and building societies and, if necessary, physically resist the bailiffs.
