GRANT THORNTON DEBT Solutions today announced it has submitted its first batch of 20 applications to the Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI) with the vast majority of cases dealing with families that have children.
These cases have been pre-approved by banks and have now moved to Protective Certificate under the new legislation introduced this year.
This comes after the first debt settlement arrangement was agreed yesterday with a debtor based in the north west of the country. The borrower had 70 per cent of a six-figure debt written off as part of the deal.
Figures from the company show that more than half of the cases were for debts such as mortgage debt while 45 per cent were deals on unsecured debt on personal loans or credit cards.
Handing back the keys
GT Debt Solutions said some 25 per cent of the cases opted to voluntarily hand over the keys of their properties to the bank, allowing them to leave behind an unsustainable mortgage.
Most of the first 20 cases - 85 per cent of them in total – are families with children with the largest proportion married with two children.
The 20 individuals come from a cross section of occupations including public servants, office workers, sales assistants and tradesmen.
GT Debt Solutions said that in the cases of DSAs – where a person has unsecured debt like a personal loan – many of these families are living on less than the reasonable living expenses as pressures from creditors put them under “great financial stress”.
Milestone
Commenting on the first cases today, GT Debt Solutions’ Stephen Tennant said it was an “important milestone” for those looking to avail of the new legislation.
“We can see that the market is now starting to find its feet, and that industry protocol is beginning to develop,” he said. “There is a realisation that the legislation, while not perfect, offers a strong basis for individuals with multi creditor exposures to deal with their financial problems in a systematic fashion.”
The personal insolvency practitioner said more cases will follow closely behind this first batch.
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