PHOTO: ROSA WOODS/STUFF Borrowers making repayments on around 83,500✓ home loans have now used the mortgage deferral scheme.
Thousands of households have missed payments on their mortgages, but haven’t yet been brought into the home loan “holiday” scheme.
To help households cope with the economic impacts of Covid-19, the Reserve Bank and the big retail banks agreed on a mortgage deferral scheme to allow struggling households to make lower payments on their home loans, or postpone making payments at all.
Borrowers making repayments on around 83,500 home loans have now used the mortgage deferral scheme. It has been extended and will now run until March 31, Finance Minister Grant Robertson confirmed on Monday.
But Reserve Bank data shows there were 10,905 mortgages in arrears at the end of August which were not covered by the home loan deferral scheme, and the actual number may be even higher. Credit reporting bureau Centrix said its data showed 13,500 mortgages flagged for missed payments.
There’s a staggering amount of people missing payments on a weekly basis on their mortgage,” said Kevin McHugh, publisher for the Finder financial services comparison website in New Zealand.
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