The number of people in mortgage arrears is falling fast as the banks' legal pursuit of non-payers drops, new figures show.
The number being pursued through the courts by lenders is 5,908 but that is down from 6,650 a year ago. Overall, the total number of mortgages in arrears is down 3,073 accounts, or 6%, from a year previously, the Central Bank reported.
The total number of outstanding mortgages is also dropping as homeowners near the end of their mortgage use lockdown savings to pay off their loans in the face of rising interest rates from the European Central Bank.
Of the mortgages in arrears, some 5,908 accounts, or 13%, are currently part of a legal process, with just over a third of them in the legal system for more than five years.
Housing campaigner David Hall, of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation, said: "A lot of people will be paying them off. With the risk of interest rates going up, anyone with a couple of quid left would pay it off early with lockdown savings.
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"If you have the chance to clear if off, you do, get rid of it. Why give a bank more interest? If you're coming near to the end of your mortgage you want to be debt-free and not be stuck in the middle of chaos and rates going up and extra payments. You want to be rid of all that stuff."
The drop in long-term arrears figures - those more than five-years behind on repayments - is 12,526, down 1,575 from 14,101 a year ago.
However, Mr Hall said the situation does not represent the 'rump' of long-term arrears. The number in arrears of more than ten years is 5,860, which has only fallen by a paltry two in the past 12 months.
At the same time, in the face of rising interest, rates more people are paying off their mortgages.
The total number of mortgages is now just below 720,000, which is down 5,252 over the 12 months to the end of June. Banking and Payments Federation Ireland chief economist Dr Ali Ugur said: "It would be historical mortgages that would be coming off the books.
"So if you took a 20-year mortgage back in 2000 obviously that would be paid off. The number would be quite significant, if you remember the early 2000s, 2001, 2002, there was a lot of mortgages.
"There wouldn't be many 20-year mortgages but with savings they might have paid them off."
He added that with interest rates now rising, borrowers think it is a good time to pay their mortgage off if they are near the end of a loan and have the savings to do it.
