“We want to right an evil,” said Mr. Stubbs, during debate on a private member’s bill brought by Elizabeth MP Malcolm Adderley.
Mr. Stubbs said, “We want to readdress a heinous crime that has been perpetrated for many years by those who were most unconscionable, those who made millions and millions of dollars from one piece of property. The time has come to stop it.”
He added, “If anyone in this house or outside this house seeks to impede the progress of this committee, we will deal with them at the right time and the right place.”
Mr. Adderley wants parliament to appoint a select committee “to examine, investigate and assess the policy of banking institutions with respect to mortgage lending and practices with a view to offering legislative protection for consumers.”
Mount Moriah MP, Keod Smith, meanwhile, said that banks in the country are close to being “legitimized criminal institutions.”
“The banks have made as much as they can possibly make without being seen in fact as criminal,” Mr. Smith said. “And we in this place, under this PLP Government, which is all for the people, especially the small person, must do it in this term. We must do it now.”
He added that the necessary Consumer Protection legislation must be put in place.
“When the banks see fit to take possession and to liquidate an asset for the purposes of covering whatever is owed to them, it really surprises me that the banks really do not feel the need to tell people ‘I am going to put it on the market’,” Mr. Smith said.
“We have no Consumer Protection legislation in this country. We have to have it. We need to have an Unfair Contract Terms Act legislated with speed.”
He said consumers should have the right to negotiate with lenders without fear.
Minister of Housing and National Insurance Shane Gibson said, though, that not all lending institutions are bad and that parliament must be careful that it does not pass laws that are unfair to banks and other lenders.
“I don’t want us to react too quickly to what is going to be looked into by this committee,” Minister Gibson said. “I believe that at the end of the day, we want to make sure that whatever happens we create the proper balance.”
He said 33 percent of loans at the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation are in arrears.
“Maybe a small percentage of those persons really cannot afford to pay their mortgages,” Minister Gibson said. “In one case, Mr. Speaker, we have a mortgager who has not paid a mortgage in nine years. You can understand some persons running into difficulty and not being able to pay their mortgages for [one] or two months [but nine years?.”
He added, “The process of trying to get someone evicted and trying to get someone to pay is a long and drawn out process. You don’t just default today and then tomorrow [the person] is evicted and you get your money.”
He said lending institutions sometimes face frustration in their efforts to collect mortgage payments.
“I support looking into those institutions that are taking advantage of people,” Minister Gibson said. “But at the same time, we need to be very, very careful and don’t let our sympathy get the better part of us.”
The Bahama Journal
