Support for mortgage interest (SMI) extended AGAIN

ILW

Percy1983 wrote: »

I don't disagree with this, but what about the the families who can't afford due to inflated prices, is it right they should pay for other families to have something they don't have themselves?

As harsh as it is, if you can't afford something you shouldn't get to keep it indefinitely, yes they should be give time to sort it out but it should only be for so long.

I have to agree, if you cannot get a new job which will support your mortgage in a year, then selling up should be the only option.

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It's a guestimate.

Provide a better one.

I’ll try

All young borrows 9% have max which is now £600

People in lower middle 19% have lets say £400

People in upper middle 18% have £200

Pensioners 52% have £100

9x600=5400
19x400=7600
18x 200=3600
52x100=5200

Average = 222

I bet it’s actually lower

Graham_Devon

The only average cost I can find is from 2007.

Was £47 per week, and covering roughly 100,000 claimants (however, cap was £100,000, not £200,00 as now)

http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snsp-00737.pdf

Page 11

Someone else can do the maths.

Page 10 lists total costs, total numbers etc for years going back to 1980.

However, trying to calculate costs recently is difficult, due to the changes (first one being 13 weeks instead of 39 weeks wait, second one bring all the changes in interest rates, third one being double the amount you can claim on).

Generali

chucky wrote: »

i agree with you that nobody should be on SMI long term.

if they're on it long term i guess they're not really interested in getting a job a guess. these people are probably extremes though.

I've probably met 20-30 people at a job club when I worked in the mid-90s as a private sector recruitment bloke briefly and pretty much all of whom were unable to take short-term work because if they did then they'd stop having the interest paid on their mortgage (this used to be done indefinitely until about the mid-90s and anyone already on the scheme stayed on it).

I had loads of work in warehouses, street sweeping etc. Low paid crappy jobs but the sort of thing that might get someone who has been out of work for a long time back used to earning money and getting to work on time, that sort of thing. Mostly they told me they were interested but only if it meant they didn't risk losing the mortgage interest payments.

I chatted to them for quite a while and most of them had been on the dole for a very long time and were just trapped in this life of not being able to afford to go and get the sort of job that they could get.

They were a nice bunch of guys but it was f'ing depressing. They were just sitting around in a job club in Croydon waiting for nothing to happen.

It would have done them a huge favour if they'd had their homes repossessed years earlier and they'd then gotten on with their lives. Especially if the law was changed so that people that are repossessed because dole payments for mortgage interest run out aren't then pursued for years for the capital and missed interest payments.

Let them get the pain done with and let them rebuild their lives.

blueboy43

Generali wrote: »

I've probably met 20-30 people at a job club when I worked in the mid-90s as a private sector recruitment bloke briefly and pretty much all of whom were unable to take short-term work because if they did then they'd stop having the interest paid on their mortgage (this used to be done indefinitely until about the mid-90s and anyone already on the scheme stayed on it).


Let them get the pain done with and let them rebuild their lives.

Gen,

This was the latest parlimentary doc I can find.

http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/SNSP-05818.pdf

As at Feb 2010 there were 227,000 people getting SMI.

Of these there were 117,000 receiving pension credit (ie they must by definition be over 60) - this obviously begs the question why so many elderly people have mortgages - but thats a different matter.

Of the remainder there were only 34,000 getting income based Job Seekers Allowance.

The remainder are on income support (32% of whom were getting DLA or attendance allowance).

Many of the recipients are disabled or are a carer (some will obviously getting pension credit).

Then there are some people on Income and Support allowance (which replaced Incapacity Benefit) who are also entitled to it - but DWP doesn't publish the numbers.

The numbers of people getting it in the early 1990's were at least double.

I'm all for removing impediments from people taking any work but, just don't reckon it is that big an issue with regards to getting people back into work.

Generali

blueboy43 wrote: »

Gen,

This was the latest parlimentary doc I can find.

http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/SNSP-05818.pdf

As at Feb 2010 there were 227,000 people getting SMI.

Of these there were 117,000 receiving pension credit (ie they must by definition be over 60) - this obviously begs the question why so many elderly people have mortgages - but thats a different matter.

Of the remainder there were only 34,000 getting income based Job Seekers Allowance.

The remainder are on income support (32% of whom were getting DLA or attendance allowance).

Many of the recipients are disabled or are a carer (some will obviously getting pension credit).

The numbers of people getting it in the early 1990's were at least double.

Just don't reckon it is that big an issue with regards to getting people back into work.

Fair enough, I must have met a disproportionate number. The plural of anecdote isn't data.....

chucky

blueboy43 wrote: »

I'm all for removing impediments from people taking any work but, just don't reckon it is that big an issue with regards to getting people back into work.

just because SMI has been extended it must be easy for some people to think that the same people are having their SMI extended and will be on it forever.

people that are unemployed on SMI do go back to work. of course their are exceptions but from your data it isn't the norm.

blueboy43

Generali wrote: »

Fair enough, I must have met a disproportionate number. The plural of anecdote isn't data.....

The pensioner number does puzzle me a bit.

I wonder how many people in their early 50's were made redundant (interestingly at the moment more over 50's are finding work than any other group - the opposite of what it once was) then never worked again - and changed their mortgage to an interest only one.

This benefit should really only be for the "tough times", in normal periods of economic growth, it should be made more difficult to claim (waiting time plus mortgage amount).

Mrs_Arcanum

blueboy43 wrote: »

The pensioner number does puzzle me a bit.

I wonder how many people in their early 50's were made redundant (interestingly at the moment more over 50's are finding work than any other group - the opposite of what it once was) then never worked again - and changed their mortgage to an interest only one.

This benefit should really only be for the "tough times", in normal periods of economic growth, it should be made more difficult to claim (waiting time plus mortgage amount).

Or perhaps some were hit by the endowment debacle and have re-mortgaged to pay the shortfall.

ILW

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

Or perhaps some were hit by the endowment debacle and have re-mortgaged to pay the shortfall.

But it appears that remortgages (except for repairs) are not covered. This does seem rather vague though.

It does seem rather odd that there are a load of pensioners that have not been able to pay off their mortgage before retiring.