Independent Marco City MP Greg Moss has said that before the end of November, he will table mortgage relief legislation in the House of Assembly under the banner of the new party with which he said he will "very shortly be formally aligned". Moss, a staunch advocate for mortgage relief, said it is clear the Christie administration will not approach the matter through legislation.
Meanwhile, a government spokesman - who spoke on condition of anonymity - assured that the administration has not dropped the matter, despite the lengthy silence on what had been one of the primary planks of the Progressive Liberal Party's (PLP) election campaign.
"Some things are happening behind the scenes. We will be able to update in a couple of weeks," the spokesman said.
Moss, who left the PLP earlier this year citing leadership failures, told Guardian Business yesterday that since the government "clearly will not legislate", he would deal with the matter directly.
"The party will come out in November and shortly thereafter, in that party's name, I will bring that legislation to the House," Moss said.
No relief, no plan
"I do not believe that the government has ever had a mortgage relief program. The government has had a mortgage relief prostration, where they have prostrated themselves before the bank, and have asked the bank, 'Please confirm to us that you will do something civil and decent with respect to our people rather than taking their homes and selling them'. There has never been a program," Moss said.
Moss has been overtly critical of the Christie administration's stance on mortgage relief. He reportedly authored the sections of the Progressive Liberal Party's "Our Plan" campaign document that dealt with mortgage relief, and told Guardian Business some months ago that he did not recognize what the administration had attempted to pass off as "mortgage relief" after gaining power as the same thing he wrote about.
Referencing the most recent version of the plan, Moss noted that it amounted to the government going to the banks and asking the banks to "please agree to something that would bring relief to the people".
"That was and is a capitulation by the government of its role as the government, but also in the House of Assembly, as the legislature, to promote laws that bring equity, transparency and fairness to the banking system in The Bahamas. It never made any sense," he said.
"There is no need to go and prostrate yourself before the banks and ask them to do what is not in their financial interest to do. It never made any sense and it still doesn't make any sense. What there is a need for is legislation that would allow the courts to have jurisdiction to deal with these matters."
The new way
Rather than a system in which the courts are only empowered to grant an extension of time once a bank has enforced its power to sell a house out from under a resident who has fallen behind on a mortgage, Moss says what is needed is a system in which banks do not have such a power in the first place without the leave of the court.
"If we pass a simple statute that says that before a lending institution exercises a power of sale over a dwelling house - meaning not your business, your apartment which you don't live in, your car - your dwelling house, before any bank exercises a power of sale over that, they need the leave of the court. And what has been found internationally is that once you pass that law, two things happen.
"One, the court has jurisdiction to say no, to delay, to change the loans, the write down the monthly sum, to write down interest and remove penal sums; but two, banks know the court has that jurisdiction and tend to work the matter out with the borrower without recourse to the courts," he said.
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