Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 February 2022
383. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage his views on whether local authorities should only use private operators in the mortgage to rent scheme as a last resort. [8316/22]
View answerThe Mortgage to Rent (MTR) scheme was introduced in 2012 for borrowers of commercial lending institutions and is targeted at those households in mortgage arrears who have had their mortgage position deemed unsustainable by their lender under the Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process (MARP), who agree to the voluntary surrender of their home and who have very limited options, if any, to meet their long-term housing needs themselves. In addition, the household must be deemed eligible for social housing support.
The decision on who purchases each property under the MTR scheme is not made by the local authority. The borrower surrenders their property to their lender and it will be then sold to the MTR provider who is interested in the property. This can be either an Approved Housing Body (AHB) or since 2018 a private company, Home for Life Ltd. If more than one party is interested in buying the property, the lender will provide information to the borrower around the options available to them and the borrower will make the decision on who purchases the property.
A review of the MTR scheme took place in 2017 and explored the avenues and impediments to participation in the scheme. Along with introducing a range of amendments to the eligibility criteria and administration of the MTR scheme, the review concluded that the financial model of the scheme at the time may not have been capable of delivering the scale of successful cases that could benefit from the scheme. The review, taking account of capacity within the AHB sector given that sector's role in delivering ambitious targets around new social housing supply, recommended that alternative funding options, including the off-balance sheet potential of private institutional investment, be explored in order to allow the MTR scheme to deliver at scale. An Expressions of Interest (EOI) Request was initiated by the Housing Agency in October 2017 inviting parties from the private sector to express their interest in participating in a new alternatively funded long-term MTR lease model. The outcome from the EOI process is that a new MTR alternatively funded lease model was announced in 2018 with Home for Life Ltd. as the participant from the private sector.
The inclusion of an MTR provider from the private sector has had a positive impact on the number of completed cases since its entry into the scheme and up to the end December 2021, has facilitated 672 families (40% of all MTR cases) to stay in their homes. Given the sizeable cohort of borrowers still in long-term mortgage arrears, all the MTR providers participating in the scheme are needed in order to meet the demand for the scheme. In all scenarios, my Department and the Housing Agency are focused on meeting the long-term housing needs of the greatest number of households in unsustainable mortgage arrears.
