Local homeowners in crisis as almost half of Kildare Co Council mortgages in arrears of over 3 months

Kildare homeowners who have mortgages are the worst performing group of homeowners in the country as new figures show that half of them are in mortgage arrears.

A staggering 49.7% of people with council mortgages in Kildare are in arrears over a period of 90 days, with homeowners unwilling or unable to pay back the loans that were given to them by the Kildare County Council.

Council mortgage loans are given to people who have applied to banks for a mortgage but have not been approved, and local authority mortgages are typically easier to pay back as they have an interest rate that is usually 1.5% lower than those of the banks. The money for these council mortgages are provided by the Housing Finance Agency.

The figures that the Kildare County Council have given out 587 mortgages in the past year, and 292(49.7%) of those have not been repaid in over 90 days. This is significantly worse than the national average of 27.4%, and alongside Waterford City and County Council, shows that the KCC mortgages are being repaid at a far lower rate than the third worst performing council, Clare, where 38.5% of mortgage holders are in arrears of more than 90 days.

Just 11% of mortgages issued by banks are in arrears of over 90 days, which is unsurprising considering the more strict guidelines over the private sector loans. In 2015 there were only 80 homes repossessed by local authorities due to mortgage arrears, while the banks have repossessed a massive 421 homes in the first quarter of 2016 due to repayment defaults.