By LISA S. KING
FN Asst. Editor
lisa@nasguard.com
Having brought to light the huge number of persons who are delinquent in their loans several weeks ago, executives of the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation (BMC) stated yesterday that they do not wish to foreclose on any of the homes involved and advises those who are in default to come in and have their accounts updated.
During a press conference held at the BMC office in Freeport, Managing Director Jerome Godfrey said the rise in delinquent accounts have become a major concern for the Corporation because the ratio of the loans in arrears presently stands at 27.43 percent of the total portfolio.
He noted that this ratio is too high and that despite their efforts to encourage Baham-ian borrowers to meet their mortgage obligations, they now have to take serious steps to deal with the situation because they have observed that the priority of those who are neglecting to repay is not what it ought to be.
Godfrey revealed that in Grand Bahama, there are 639 loans under repayment and of these, 228 are in arrears, which represents 35.68 percent of the Grand Bahama portfolio with a dollar value of $1,824,387.90.
Over the past few months, he said the Corporation has embarked on an advertisement campaign with the expressed purpose of reaching out to delinquent borrowers so that they can come in to discuss and arrange a programme that will update their mortgage arrears in a timely manner.
" Whereas this initiative has had a marginal degree of success, many of our clients with mortgages have not taken advantage of the initiative," Godfrey said.
"Tougher measures are ahead by the Corporation and these measures can result in foreclosure on the borrower's property. However, and before that time comes, the Corporation is again reaching out to persons with mortgage loans in arrears to come in to our Freeport, Grand Bahama office to update their delinquent mortgages."
Godfrey said the BMC will continue to issue letters to delinquent borrowers giving them deadlines to come in to the Corporation to update their account. Failure to do so, he warned, will result in the Corporation beginning the process to realize its security under the mortgage.
"In short, we will proceed to foreclosure of the property and ultimate eviction of the occupants from the premises," he said. "This is not the way we would prefer to go as the Corporation is not in the business of selling properties, however, there comes a time when the Corporation must take a 'get tough' attitude and that time is now."
"We are cognizant of the fact that the island of Grand Bahama has been experiencing an economic setback for several years since the three hurricanes devastated portions of the island resulting in the closure of some businesses and subsequent job loss for many individuals."
Nevertheless, Godfrey assured that the BMC will continue to exercise leniency with these persons. However, he said there are many individuals who are financially capable of meeting their monthly mortgage payment obligation, but are not doing so in a timely manner.
"We are encouraging these persons to visit us to bring their account current if they wish to avoid foreclosure," he said. "We are also mindful of the predictions of a marginalized growth in our economy in the months ahead and therefore feel that this effort now to encourage borrowers to fix what is wrong will act as a hedge if our borrowers were to be affected by such marginalization of our economy."
The managing director said that he believes many of the persons have not been meeting their obligations because making their mortgage payments has been very low on their list of priorities.
The Bahamas Mortgage Corporation is a Quasi Government Corporation that is governed by the provisions of The Bahamas Mortgage Corporation Act. The mandate of the Corporation is to provide residential mortgage loans to Bahamians throughout The Bahamas.
