Mortgage Interest supplement - Has Something Changed?

Mark#1

Hi,

I've been unemployed since Feb 09, and have been receiving JB since then.

We were also getting mortgage interest supplement, but had to return a review form last week, which has resulted in a refusal letter in the door today.

None of our circumstances has changed - I'm still unemployed and I've had no communication from the bank to say interest rates have changed.

So why all of a sudden am I not entitled to MIS?

I've been advised to see a particular person in the local welfare office to discuss it, but that's not till next Wednesday and I'd like to find out what's going on before that.


Thanks for any replies/help/advice,

Mark

cee_jay

Information on mortgage interest supplement is here: http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Schemes/SupplementaryWelfareAllowance/Pages/MortgageInterstSupplement.aspx
You will have to have a read to see if you still meet all the conditions, and are below the income levels for your household.

Mark#1

Thanks Carol.

We had a look at the figures that were included in the refusal docs, and it looks on the face of it that the info we submitted on the form may have stated our weekly mortgage figure as a monthly figure. Whether this was done by the bank or by ourselves, we don't know yet.

This would have resulted in the Social Welfare calculating our weekly mortgage payment as a quarter of what is actually our real weekly figure, if you follow me, or a sixteenth of our monthly figure. We're looking into it today.

Rough maths is supporting this thoery.

I hope that's what's wrong - that MIS makes a significant difference.


Thanks again for your reply.

Mark

Mark#1

In case this is of any use/interest to anyone else, no mistake was made - things have changed. Because of "recent budget changes" (when was the last budget?), we are in fact no longer eligible.

This is marvellous. We now officially have less coming in than we have going out.

So anyway, enough about me - how're things with you, Mr Cowan? Mr Lenihan? Mr Ahern?

Enough bread for the kid's school sandwiches? Are you getting a 12 foot or a 15 foot bouncy castle for the kid's birthday party this year? Are you going to change the car this year, or stick with the 94 Corolla?


Mark

Xiney

Sorry to hear that

Have you visited MABS?

Mark#1

Not yet. We went to our bank. We'll be paying interest only on the mortgage for the next 6 months, starting in November, to be reviewed again after that time. That puts us back afloat again. The girl in the bank wondered why we hadn't arranged this earlier. I guess we just didn't think I'd be out of work this long.

Thanks for your sentiments.


Mark

snubbleste

Hey Mark
Could you be more specific as to what changes in the last budget affected your case? Did the threshold fall or..?

Mark#1

To be honest, no I can't be more specific. Sorry.

Once the welfare officer started confirming that there was no mistake, I kinda went off into another world. I didn't really hear everything she said and couldn't ask all the obvious necessary questions - I jus kept thinking I was screwed now.

I'll have a browse and see what I can find.


EDIT: Just found this:

http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Topics/Budget/bud09_apr/Pages/MIS_june09.aspx

Thing is, this change from €18 to €24 doesn't seem to alter my figures by enough to render me ineligible. I've used the calculation in this post on askaboutmoney.ie: http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=121222

I guess it's possible there's another change that I'm not aware of yet. I'll call the CWO tomorrow to ask the questions I should have asked last Wednesday.

We got an appeal form and are sending that off.


Mark