Contact your lender as early as possible to discuss your options.

If you can't afford to repay your mortgage or loan due to COVID-19 – or any other reason – you should contact your lender as early as possible and discuss what options are available to you.

Your lender will consider your particular situation and discuss a range of options to help you deal with financial difficulties at any stage. Every borrower’s circumstances are different, but these may include:

• A payment break is where you agree with your lender to postpone your repayments, or agree a reduced payment where your loan repayments are reduced for an agreed period of time
• An “interest only” arrangement is where you only pay the interest payments on your mortgage loan for a period of time.

Our consumer protection framework, including the SME Regulations, is designed to protect your interests, particularly in times where you may experience financial difficulties. All regulated lenders should engage with you sympathetically and positively, with the objective at all times of assisting you. We are monitoring this process to ensure the requirements are being met.

And remember, if you are in financial difficulty or potential difficulty, our existing consumer protections are there to protect you.

If you availed of a COVID-19 payment break, your lender will contact you in advance of it ending. It is important that you engage with your lender at this point, and understand the options available to you and what suits your circumstances best. 

We have communicated with lenders about our expectations around payment breaks and the options that should be available to borrowers. If you are in a position to return to full repayment of your loan, there are generally two options available:

• You can return to full capital and interest repayments within the existing term of your mortgage. Choosing this option will mean you will end up paying a higher monthly amount, but your mortgage will be repaid in full within the original term of your mortgage contract.
• You can extend the term of the mortgage or loan by the length of the payment break. Choosing this option means you will end up paying a similar monthly amount as before you took the payment break but it will take you longer to pay off your mortgage in full.

Both options will result in an increased cost of credit and by engaging with your lender, these options and costs can be clearly explained to you. 

If you are still experiencing financial difficulties after the agreed payment break comes to an end, you should speak to your lender to discuss what other options are available to support you further. There are requirements for lenders to follow under the SME Regulations if you are having difficulties with your loan.

If your circumstances change after agreeing an alternative repayment arrangement, including if they improve, you should let your lender know as soon as possible. The arrangement you are on might not be appropriate any longer, so they will review and consider what other options are available.

This can be a difficult time for borrowers, so engaging with your lender and affording yourself all the protections in place is the best option.

For a range of other SME supports please see Government supports for COVID-19 impacted businesses.

You will have to check with your lender.

The Central Credit Register produces credit reports for lenders and borrowers. Importantly, it does not produce a credit score or a credit rating; it simply records the information that is submitted by lenders. It is factual, impartial information. The onus is on the lender at all times to ensure that the information reported to the Central Credit Register correctly reflects arrangements agreed with you.

Every month lenders submit personal and credit information on loans over €500 to the Central Credit Register. The Central Credit Register matches this information to create credit reports for lenders and borrowers.

When a lender agrees a COVID-19 payment break with a borrower, the lender should not report this to the Central Credit Register as payments being "missed" or "past due" or the loan as being "restructured", during the period of the payment break.

Example

If a lender agrees with a borrower to a payment break with no payments at all for a period of three months, starting in April. The lender will not report this as "missed payments" or a "restructure" event to the Central Credit Register for April, May and June.

If payments were being made, the amount recorded as the "Outstanding Balance" would normally decrease during those months. However as no payments are being made during the payment break period, the "Outstanding Balance" recorded will not decrease. The "Outstanding Balance" information is contained in the credit report.

There is a lot of information available on the Central Credit Register’s website including:

• A list of all lenders who submit information to the Central Credit Register
• A sample credit report and more information on your rights
• A comprehensive FAQ

You can, if you wish, place an explanatory statement on your credit report to explain your current circumstances where your loans are concerned.

It is important to note, only the Central Credit Register is within the remit of the Central Bank of Ireland; private credit bureaux are not. In order to determine if your credit rating will be affected, you may wish to check with your lender to see if they submit information on loans to any private credit bureaux, which may produce credit ratings or credit scores.

See also

• What is the Central Credit Register?

Your cost of credit is the difference between the amount you borrow and the total amount you repay over the lifetime of the loan. Cost of credit can be influenced by interest charged, fees, repayment frequency, term of your loan and other charges. By engaging with your lender, costs can be clearly explained to you.

The Central Bank is working constructively with all the sectors it regulates, recognising the challenges they face to maintain continuity of business and provision of service to customers in light of the global public health emergency caused by COVID-19.

Our core focus is on ensuring that the financial system can continue to provide services to households and businesses at this difficult time. We also expect regulated firms to have appropriate contingency plans in place to be able to deal with major operational events should they occur.

The retail banks and credit unions have business continuity plans, including contingency plans, in place on how to assist you if there are branch closures due to business disruption.

We expect banks to have alternative arrangements in place so that they can continue to provide services to you, including information on how to access banking or credit union services if some branches or offices have to close. We will continue to work with banks and credit unions to ensure that where they have to take the decision to close certain branches, that small businesses who do not have online facilities will be able to avail of an alternative means to access their account. We expect firms to communicate with you to let you know how you can access their services.

We expect regulated firms to have appropriate contingency plans in place to be able to deal with major operational events, should they occur, and we are engaged with firms across the financial system to ensure that firms are responding effectively to the evolving situation.

We expect banks and credit unions to have alternative arrangements in place so that they can continue to provide services to you, including information on how to access banking and credit union services if some branches or offices have to close. We will continue to work with banks and credit unions to ensure that where they have to take the decision to close certain offices or branches, that small businesses who do not have online facilities will be able to avail of an alternative means to access their account. We expect firms to communicate with you to let you know how you can access their services.

We have set out our expectations of how regulated insurance firms should treat you in light of the significant economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 public health emergency.

We have written to the Chairs and CEOs of both life and general insurance firms requiring them to take account of the challenging situation in which many of you find yourselves and to put forward consumer-focused solutions for insurance payment breaks, policy rebates and claims in light of the emergency.

In relation to insurance claims, firms must ensure that any settlement offer made to you is fair, takes into account all relevant factors and represents the firm’s best estimate of your reasonable entitlement under the policy. Firms must ensure that they handle claims effectively and properly. Although we expect that most policy wordings are clear in terms of what cover is provided and what is excluded, where there is a doubt about the meaning of a term, the interpretation most favourable to you should prevail. Firms must ensure that claims are appropriately assessed and where there is insurance cover in place that your claim is accepted and paid promptly.

Where a claim is made because a business has closed as a result of a Government direction due to contagious or infectious disease, the Central Bank is of the view that that the recent Government advice to close a business in the context of COVID-19 should be treated as a direction. This is a view that has also been set out by the Minister for Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform. Firms must ensure that claims are appropriately assessed and where there is insurance cover in place that claims are accepted and paid promptly.