Independent TD Mattie McGrath has called on the Minister for Finance, the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator to investigate as a matter of urgency, the practices of unregulated agents who, acting on behalf of banks are demanding rent and personal details from tenants, including their PPS number and bank account details.

“The actions of these agents represent a new and despicable low. It is like the Wild West with these people, who in many instances are unlicensed in an insolvency industry that is already unregulated. We have seen Ulster Bank in recent week aggressively appoint hundreds of receivers to the buy to let sector and in some instances to property that the Bank was not legally entitled to.”

Deputy McGrath was speaking after it came to his attention that a young family were subjected to a horrifying ordeal on Holy Thursday night when agents acting on behalf of Ulster Bank illegally entered a house while the tenant was out. When the tenant who is a young mother returned with her two and a half year old daughter she found two individuals changing the locks. The men fled before the Gardaí arrived.

“It is incidents like these that I as a public representative am increasingly becoming aware of. I call on the Minister for Finance and the Financial Regulator to act decisively on this issue. At a bare minimum the Government needs to introduce significant new controls on bank directors and receivers if receivers are appointed in error or if receivers acting on behalf banks break the law”.