Can’t pay the mortgage? Quit online gambling

For the thousands of mortgage holders struggling to cough up every month there’s one thing the banks don’t want to see on statements: gambling transactions.

Banking institutions have warned the tens of thousands of homeowners to take an inventory before asking for a reduced payment restructure and that one of the first things to go should be any online gambling accounts.

Chief executive of mortgage debt advisory firm Negotiate, Trevor Grant, told the Irish Examiner that looking for a new mortgage or a restructure will often be declined by banks if they see such transactions being made on a regular basis and are also always on the look-out for difficulties in paying Sky digital subscriptions, tuition fees and mobile-phone bills.

Mr Grant said: "When a lender assesses an application for reduced mortgage repayments due to financial difficulty, the customer is required to submit a detailed application, often including current account and credit-card statements.

"Not unreasonably, lenders will form a view that if the customer is struggling to pay their mortgage they should be tightening their belts, and they consider gambling, for example, as a non-essential activity and therefore should be one of the first social indulgences to be cut.”

Some might say that the gambling began some years back when property prices were at a premium and borrowing extraordinary amounts of money during the boom time was a major risk.