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Shared ownership families struggling

Thursday, 11 March 2010

OVER 40 per cent of Dublin home owners who bought under the shared ownership home scheme have fallen into arrears according to recently released statistics. The figures from the Oireachtas Library and Research Section show that 43.5 per cent of householders paying loans under the council backed scheme are behind with their repayments. The scheme was launched to help people on lower incomes get on the property ladder by buying half their home and renting the other half from the council until they were in a position to buy it from them. Dublin North West TD Róisín Shortall (Lab) said the figures highlighted the number of families now in financial difficulty. “The Shared Ownership Scheme was supposed to be an affordable route to home ownership, set up to assist first time buyers during a time of over inflated property values during the boom,” she said. “In many cases the scheme has worked well, but judging by these figures, clearly more needs to be done to assist families. “These figures clearly highlight the extent on which the recession and the jobs crisis has impacted on families across Dublin. The inability of so many families to make scheduled payments cannot be divorced from the overall economic crisis, and in particular, the failure of the Fianna Fail and the Green Government to tackle the country's growing economic problems”