Q.
Should I avail of a moratorium? Will it cost me more?
A.
I believe that the demand for moratoriums will have reduced drastically this week following the Government’s announcement of the Covid 19 Wage Subsidy Scheme where Revenue will pay 70% of employees salaries up to a limit if €410 weekly (ie €1,775 monthly) and the increase in the Covid unemployment benefit to €350 weekly (ie €1,515 monthly) from €203. Given that it’s very difficult to spend money at present, most people should be able to meet their monthly financial commitments in the short term based on the above supports.
If you have been made redundant and cannot meet your monthly repayment, contact your bank immediately and apply for a moratorium it.
If you qualify but don’t need it, then don’t rush into it.. this choice can occur where somebody has been made redundant, has a mortgage repayment of say €1,000 monthly but may have savings of say €20,000. In this instance you can use €3,000 of your savings to pay your mortgage for 3 months. The reason why some people won’t avail of the moratorium is that if they wish to borrow again in the next couple of years, availing of the moratorium may go against them in terms of being approved for a new mortgage. As it stands most banks will want you to be making full repayments for 2 years after a moratorium before they will approve a mortgage. Also.m, a borrower will pay more interest in the long term.
For example a borrower has €350,000 outstanding with 32 years remaining and a variable interest rate of 3.15%. Monthly payments are €1,447.83 monthly. If they don’t make payments for 3 months they will pay an additional €2,651 interest on the 3 months deferred payments of €4,546 over the remaining 31 years 9 months.
Read the full article by Charlie Weston in the Sunday Independent here –
https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/your-questions-im-worried-stock-market-turmoil-has-hit-my-pension-should-i-be-taking-action-39120072.html
