Support for mortgage interest benefit cut by thousands of pounds

PasturesNew

What used to happen is:
[1] You were told to take out insurance. Not suitable for everybody, but anybody who could benefit from it should have had it.
[2] If you became unemployed, after 9 months your interest was paid. Not sure how long for.

Changes that have been made in the last couple of years have been:
[3] Reducing the length of time you have to wait down to 13 weeks.
[4] Paying a flat rate, even if you could pay capital off with the excess.
[5] Seem to be 2 separate schemes running people could benefit from (I think one was for people with kids mostly though).
[6] Lenders were told to go easy.

So - it must have been a lot easier in the past 2 years, this money was put in place to buy a little extra time for people. It was never intended to be a fixed, long-term hand out.

ILW

woodbine wrote: »

its obviously escaped you that we are talking about peoples homes here,not cars or anything else for that matter but HOMES probably in alot of cases where children live.Do some research in many cases SMI isnt paid for long periods and in fact those claiming thru JSA are limited to a max of 2 years,and we are also talking about interest not capital repayments.
of course if you become incapacitated or unemployed you dont have to avail yourself of SMI,its not compulsary.

Trouble is that as a taxpayer (and maybe not a homeowner) it is compulsory to contribute towards it.

ILW

woodbine wrote: »

its obviously escaped you that we are talking about peoples homes here,not cars or anything else for that matter but HOMES probably in alot of cases where children live.Do some research in many cases SMI isnt paid for long periods and in fact those claiming thru JSA are limited to a max of 2 years,and we are also talking about interest not capital repayments.
of course if you become incapacitated or unemployed you dont have to avail yourself of SMI,its not compulsary.

But for private renters a six month secured tenency is fine. Are they less sensitive than buyers?

Graham_Devon

woodbine wrote: »

its obviously escaped you that we are talking about peoples homes here,not cars or anything else for that matter but HOMES probably in alot of cases where children live.Do some research in many cases SMI isnt paid for long periods and in fact those claiming thru JSA are limited to a max of 2 years,and we are also talking about interest not capital repayments.
of course if you become incapacitated or unemployed you dont have to avail yourself of SMI,its not compulsary.

Yes, it escaped me. I apologise.




I can't work with these people

silvercar

The 6.08% was too high as it meant the majority of people on this benefit were getting some of the capital repaid. So its being lowered.

For all those who think SMI is so unfair, what would you like to happen to someone who loses their job? They can't pay their mortgage, they can't sell due to the market or negative equity. So they get repossessed and become homeless. At which point they are a priority and jump to the top of the housing list, especially if they have children, or they increase demand for private rentals and rents go up.

chucky

dmg24 wrote: »

Should that not apply to those in rented accom also, who can potentially receive LHA and discretionary payments?

no renters are ok - it's only people who can't afford their mortgages that should live on the streets

silvercar

Graham_Devon wrote: »

So what about the people who don't have homes, because they can't afford them?

They are very much like the people who are kept in their homes through taxpayer support who also can't afford them.

Big difference between people suffering a short time loss of income due to the recession and those that make career choices to live on benefit.

carolt

chucky wrote: »

no renters are ok - it's only people who can't afford their mortgages that should live on the streets

chucky - that's not even remotely logical - ifthey lost their house, they'd be entitled to claim rent like eveyone else. They'd be no more homeless than a renter who lost their job and had to find a sufficiently cheap rental that would be covered by LHA.

You want special pleading for homeowners - I wonder why.

carolt

silvercar wrote: »

The 6.08% was too high as it meant the majority of people on this benefit were getting some of the capital repaid. So its being lowered.

For all those who think SMI is so unfair, what would you like to happen to someone who loses their job? They can't pay their mortgage, they can't sell due to the market or negative equity. So they get repossessed and become homeless. At which point they are a priority and jump to the top of the housing list, especially if they have children, or they increase demand for private rentals and rents go up.

People losing their homes neither increase nor decrease overall supply and therefore impact on demand either way - the house doesn't disappear. It is either bought by another hmeowner and therefore the amount of owner-occupied property remains static, or is bought by a landlord and therefore the amount of 'owned' property goes down by one, but the amount of rented property goes up by one.

silvercar

carolt wrote: »

People losing their homes neither increase nor decrease overall supply and therefore impact on demand either way - the house doesn't disappear. It is either bought by another hmeowner and therefore the amount of owner-occupied property remains static, or is bought by a landlord and therefore the amount of 'owned' property goes down by one, but the amount of rented property goes up by one.

Accept that point.