Mortgage restructures continue to rise in Ireland

Consumers and the country's main six banks had agreed to 72,819 permanent mortgage restructures to the end of June 2014, according to latest figures from the Department of Finance on Thursday.
This is an increase of 3,513 accounts at the end of May and 10,754 accounts at the end of March, the department said.
The six main banks are AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB, ACC, KBC Bank Ireland and Ulster Bank and they represent 90 percent of the Irish mortgage market.
A homeowner generally applies for a mortgage loan restructure to obtain affordable monthly payments and keep the home. A mortgage restructure takes place when the borrower and lender work out new repayment terms on an existing mortgage.
The figures showed that the number of mortgage accounts in arrears of greater than 90 days has fallen from 73,719 to 72,897, a drop of 822 accounts when compared to the end of May, and a fall of 5,538 when compared to the end of March.
The department said total mortgage accounts in arrears continues to fall.
The number of accounts in this category has fallen by 2,719 accounts when compared to the end of May and by 7,827 by the end of March, according to the figures.
Meanwhile, the number of split mortgages continues to increase with 14,158 split mortgages in place at the end of June, an increase of 4,114 at the end of March.
The split-mortgages idea means that part of the total homeloan will be shelved or put to one side.