Fianna Fáil Ballina Municipal District Councillor Annie May Reape said this week that banks are refusing to give people mortgages to buy houses in estates unless the estate is taken over by the county council.
Speaking at the July meeting of Ballina Municipal District, Cllr Reape said that she had become aware of a case where a couple whose sale of their house had fallen through, because the buyers had their mortgage refused by a bank because the the estate had not been taken in charge by the local authority. In the case in question, the council is in the process of taking charge of the estate but it has not been completed, and this was not enough for the lending bank to allow the mortgage to go through.
