THE fracas in the repossessions court yesterday was nothing more than a lesson in winning the battle and losing the war.

If you're having trouble with your mortgage, struggling with your payments and terrified that you're about to be evicted onto the street, then the minor coup by lawyerly group New Beginnings might make you feel better, but it shouldn't, really.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and desperate people will clutch any straw that happens to be passing.

Here's what happened: there's a loophole in the law allowing banks to repossess some homes after their owners stop paying.

GAPS

Essentially some mortgages taken out before December 1, 2009 -- when the new legislation came in -- cannot now be repossessed by the bank in certain circumstances where arrears started after that date, which will temporarily save some who had thought they'd be kicked out of their homes this month.

In other words, the new legislation wasn't as strong as it should have been.

The judge who runs the court -- Elizabeth Dunne -- says, quite reasonably that it's not up to her to fill in the gaps.

The test cases were taken by New Beginnings who have done a very clever legal job. Will it make a difference? Probably not and it would be terrible if people's hopes were raised by it. Most cases through the repossession court are 'sub prime' -- not taken out through the main banks.

Many defaulted within months of the mortgage being granted and, crucially, the money is, and will always be, owed by the borrower.

Chucking someone out of their house because they can't pay the mortgage doesn't absolve you of the loan. You still owe the money whether you live there or not. So, for all the legal high-fives involved in bringing bad law to light, it doesn't matter a tupp'ny damn for the hundreds of desperately upset, down on their luck, out of a job homeowners. They haven't paid their mortgage in months -- some of them, years -- they still aren't, and they still owe the bank.

All that's changed is that they can stay where they are for a while longer -- while the interest ratchets up and while the loan gets even bigger. They don't have to cut their losses just yet -- but they will eventually.

This legislation will now be sewn up tighter than the proverbial duck's a**e via an emergency measure in the Dail and the merry dance will continue.

The truth remains that if you are in mortgage trouble then the very first thing you should do is talk to your bank manager.

There is no shame in this, not even the tiniest bit -- after all, it was they who gave you the loan perhaps without checking if you could afford it or not. But go down, talk, and come to some arrangement.

Most repossessions happen because people do not do this. They ignore the problem.

roof

At the end of this sorry mess, there will be thousands of people who aspired to being homeowners who will no longer be. They may never again be, and perhaps they should always have been renters.

Delaying the fateful day may keep the roof over their heads, but it's a roof that is getting more and more expensive every day -- one they will never own.

That might be clever band-aid law, but it doesn't stop the wound bleeding.

- Sinead Ryan