FORMER Taoiseach Charlie Haughey’s Abbeville mansion has gone on the market for a fraction of the €45m he sold it for a decade ago.

IF NAMA’s deferred payment scheme is designed to get nervous buyers off the fence and down to their mortgage lender, then the houses viewed by the Irish Independent yesterday should do just that.

THE average consumer still owes €1,274 on their credit card, with little sign that they are getting on top of their debt.

THE country’s ‘bad bank’ was last night accused of pumping up the price of properties it is selling under a special deal to protect buyers against negative equity.

DEFERRED mortgages are being offered to first-time buyers and homeowners to kick-start the housing market.

THOUSANDS of struggling homeowners will be allowed to put part of their mortgage on ice as part of a new deal being planned by banks, the Irish Independent has learned.

HARD-pressed homeowners face having to wait until next year for another mortgage cut after the European Central Bank yesterday hinted that it’s likely to keep rates unchanged until 2013.

AN unfinished Cavan housing estate has sold for €122,500 at an auction today.

BUDGETING doesn’t always work — as shoppers who go out to buy something with a set limit in mind end up spending more.

CIVIL servants who took early retirement this year to avoid cuts in their pension got tax-free lump sums averaging €87,000 each.

THOUSANDS of AIB customers face being hit with banking fees after the bailed-out bank said it was closing one of its accounts.

THE average house is undervalued by up to €50,000, according to a new report on the state of the property market.

A CENTRAL Bank report claims that Irish home values have been "overcorrected" by between 12 and 26pc.

THE average cost of keeping a roof over your head has soared from €275 to more than €400 a week since the boom — due mainly to larger and more expensive mortgages.

UP TO 80,000 homeowners will get a mortgage reprieve worth hundreds of euro this year as Permanent TSB plans to cut its standard variable rate within weeks.

HOUSE prices remained static last month for the first time in almost two years, official figures have revealed.

SALES of life and pensions products plummeted by 17pc in the first three months of the year, continuing a trend of rapid falls that began in the second half of 2011.

THE average family is set to spend more than €3,000 on petrol for their car this year, it has emerged.

A MORTGAGE lender has blamed an error in its systems for wrongly treating a number of customers as being in arrears.

A GROUP of homeowners who don’t want their bank to switch their mortgages from interest-only have taken their case to the High Court.

DEVELOPERS and former high-flyers who go to the UK to avail of its “soft” bankruptcy laws face the prospect of losing their multimillion-euro pensions, it has emerged.

RETIRED Aer Lingus and Dublin Airport workers have become the latest to be hit by a levy on pensions.