News

1 Use a mortgage broker You will never understand the minefield that is a mortgage application. A €500 or so spend up-front takes away most of the pain. They can also search for the best mortgage, which may not be with your own bank. 2 Use a moving firm Whether

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The Central Bank is to probe all banks to see if they wrongly took tracker mortgages away from customers. Up to 10,000 homeowners may have been denied low-cost trackers, costing them thousands of euro every year in overpayments. The new probe comes in the wake of serious mistakes unearthed at

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Shortage of homes for sale means its cheaper to buy than to rent It is now cheaper to buy a family home than to rent everywhere in Ireland except parts of Dublin. However, the shortage of family homes for sale means that many ‘reluctant renters’ will be stuck handing over

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The Fr Peter McVerry Trust and Ibec’s Property Industry Ireland have joined forces to endorse a plan to allow landlords treat property tax payments as an expense – in return for giving tenants a rent break. The plan was put together by financial expert Karl Deeter. The initiative to ease

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Equity release products, which allow older homeowners to cash in on the equity on their property as part of a move to trade down to a smaller home or even boost their pension funds, could be on the way back. Although it is not currently selling equity release loans, finance

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EIGHT out of 10 parents say the cost of getting children prepared for going back to primary and secondary school is a significant burden, according to the findings of a recent Irish League of Credit Unions survey. Top of the list are school uniforms followed by books and school lunches.

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More than 100,000 people on expensive variable rate mortgages could make huge savings by switching to a lender with a lower interest rate, the Central Bank has calculated. More switching would force banks to cut variable rates across all banks. People are put off switching because they think the process

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Experts said the rate of increase was moderating, but prices would keep rising this year due to a shortage of homes and a rise in household formation. Values were up 0.6pc in the month and have now risen by almost 16pc in the past year, according to the property price

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An extra 74,000 people took out health insurance in April ahead of the introduction of late-entry penalties as part of lifetime community rating. State-owned VHI Healthcare and rival Laya are understood to have been the main beneficiaries of the rush to take out health insurance. However, the age profile of

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Finance Minister Michael Noonan says he will not accept excuses from banks that refuse to pass on interest rate reductions to variable mortgage customers. Mr Noonan said he expected to receive a report from Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan on the issue of variable rates in the coming days. He

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