Number of home loans in arrears of 90 days or more down

The number of mortgage accounts in arrears of 90 days or more continues to fall but banks have yet to restructure repayments on seven out of ten home loans that are in default.

New figures provided by the six main lenders for the Department of Finance show that total mortgage accounts in arrears stood at 91, 963 at the end of November, having fallen by 2,819 versus the previous month.

The number of home loans in arrears of three months or more fell by 1,879 to 64,196 in November.

Close to 19,000 residential mortgage accounts that were in arrears for more than 90 days were restructured - either on a temporary or permanent basis - during the month under review. However, the figures show that no action has been taken on more than 45,000 home loans that were in arrears of three months or more.

At the end of the month, approximately 13 per cent of residential mortgage accounts were in arrears, of which 9 per cent were in arrears of 90 days or more.

The number of buy-to-let mortgages in arrears fell by 786 accounts in November to 31,362. Total buy-to-let accounts in arrears of 90 days or more fell by 377 to 5,448.