Repossessions

Was Listening to Liveline last week
A man who had his house repossessed has vowed to picket the house for the rest of his life, presumably unless he is reinstated into the property on reasonable terms.

Part of his reasoning is that he should never have been given the mortgage in the first place. Thats quite a true statement. I wonder if at the time, had he been turned down for a mortgage, would he have gone on Joe Duffy to bemoan the fact that he couldn't get financing.

Hearing the phrase, "they shouldn't have given me the money" hardly ignites sympathy in peoples minds, but it is nonetheless a correct statement; so why did they? Our personal solvency laws provide that the borrower remains liable for the full value of the mortgage, even if the house is sold.

In the US the borrower can hand back the keys which closes out the mortgage. This should mean that borrowers would be more discerning as they would stand to lose money as well.

Here the borrower is on the hook for the full amount, which means that the lender can do less due diligence and still make a reasonable assumption that they will get back the bulk of their money. In addition, they have an incentive to sell the house and realize the funds ASAP, rather than hold out for an offer that is a reasonable market price, which would reduce some of the outstanding debt of the borrower.

We are going to see more of this behavior as the number of repossessions rise, not less. There is a substantial danger that we will marginalize those people and their children and in doing so reduce society's respect for personal property.

Good Friday

Just a quick post.
I'm sure these sentiments have been echoed in the media many times before but I just don't understand the logic now in prohibition on Good Friday. It temporarily shuts pubs till midnight, so people stock up in an off Licence the day before, or go out on the tear on the Thursday night instead.

The government should drop the ban for many reasons:

• It forces people with other religous views to comply with the Catholic churches laws.
• It fails to prevent people actually drinking on the day
• It prevents tourists from drinking on a good friday

The biggest reason though is that it attempts to enforce good behaviour. The people who feel strongly about not drinking as a mark of respect to their religion are still free to do so. In fact it should earn them a higher place in Heaven; if they can resist temptation then they really do understand the sacrifice.

Of course one problem is that most people manage to resist that temptation 5 or 6 days each week.
So telling them they can't drink and then closing off all of their options is basically nannying them.
As we we have all experienced in our own lives; when you are told that you have to do something it makes you more likely ro "rebel" and not do it. It might make more sense to force people to drink on the day, that way they might "rebel" positively and not drink!