Forum Post: Iceland Forgives Mortgage Debt ?
Posted 11 years ago on May 8, 2012, 5:11 p.m. EST by TrevorMnemonic
(5827)
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I've seen this story getting tossed around the internet about how there is a media black out on the fact that Iceland has forgiven mortgage debts... none from very credible news sources... from what I've found. So I asked a friend of mine to ask her 2 friends that she knows in Iceland.
This was my question
"I've read stuff online that Iceland has forgiven most of the people's mortgage debts... but the sources I've read aren't the most credible. Can you ask your Iceland friends about this? I'd google it... but the articles that pop up all just talk about the "media black out" on the subject."
These were the 2 response from her friends...
"I was chatting with Lara...She is away from the computer at the moment but said that The banks are freezing their accounts while they try to figure out payments....they have to pay it eventually or lose their house. if you need to freeze your mortage you have to apply and then if you get it you have to play by some rules and stuff"
and this is a direct quote from her other friend from facebook - "well the deal is that people always have to pay their mortages but smaller debts you can freeze, like car payments and stuff like that but there are rules, you can only have one car and things like that...... BUT the people that "own" the car and you are paying to dissagree with that so if you dont pay you have to return the car. Everything here is stop because our goverment is taking there time working out what to do, it appends who you talk to right now how they read the law, so nothing is for sure right now and the only thing we can do is wait and see how things will turn out."
I've also asked if they can provide links on the subject from their country... which I will post when I get another response from them.
Okay here is a link she gave me (it's from iceland and it's not in English and my luck in the Icelandic to English translator is not going well... although I did find the word millionaire.)
Obviously their responses are much different than the blog sources being tossed around about Iceland forgiving mortgage debts. If anyone can share info on the subject, that would be great.
Iceland only partially forgives mortgage debt is what I understand from different sources on the internet. The portion above 110% of the value of the house is forgiven, not the entire mortgage. If you had a house now worth $200,000, the debt greater than $220,000 would be forgiven. If the mortgage was $300,000, $80,000 would be forgiven.
That's how I understand it as well.