please help - need a home for my family!

Fat_Fairy

Hi,
Well we finally got our Income Support and Housing Benefit sorted out after months of waiting. The period wherein our 'earmarked' capital may be disregarded will end in May though.
We still have no firm date atall for our shared ownership home - in fact building work on the site hasn't started yet! :mad: .
So we are now wondering about trying for Income Support Mortgage Interest payments - if we can find a home within budget!. Otherwise what will happen is that our capital will slowly disappear because we wil have to pay our rent with it. My husband is disabled and my son Autistic, we are living on benefits unfortunately.

Can anyone tell me - if we go down this route, what are the guarantees?. Do we have to take out an endowment or similar (we can't really afford to), and what would happen if the benefits system changed or we no longer could get Income Support?. Our I.S keeps going down as my husband's I.B goes up with time, so we are only getting around £20 I.S per week now.

We just desperately want our own home so we can relax and make a life here for ourselves. We will be using every penny of our capital but that is only about one third of what we need to buy anything like a family home . The mortgage interest thing sounds ok but we don't trust Income Support as we've been jerked around a lot since we first claimed (e.g overpayments due to their mistake, then it took 3 months+ to sort our case out when we moved and therefore had 'earmarked capital') :rolleyes: .

Any advice from people working in the system and people on the scheme would be HUGELY appreciated :A .x

dmg24

ISMI is a very complex area, and will only cover interest on the first £100K of a mortgage (which may not get you a lot nowadays).

There is more information available here (it says Scotland but the information is largely the same). Have a read and then come back with any questions you have.

Fat_Fairy

Thanks - I will look. I live in Orkney so I need the Scottish 'rules' anyway :cool: .

I know we could only get 100k, and we have 50k, so we might stand a chance of buying a small bungalow up here with the 2 combined. We live in a lovely bungalow and we have first refusal to buy it but the owner wants almost 190k and we cannot imagine how we would get that much together .

daff_duck

I dont see how you can get a mortgage while claiming income support and then expect the DWP to pay towards the cost. Most people who get help with their mortgages already had their mortgages BEFORE going onto IS.

dmg24

daff_duck wrote: »

I dont see how you can get a mortgage while claiming income support and then expect the DWP to pay towards the cost. Most people who get help with their mortgages already had their mortgages BEFORE going onto IS.

It is possible to have ISMI paid on a new mortgage under certain circumstances (detailed in the link). However, the likelihood of any lender offering a mortgage would be extremely low. They will not offer it on the basis of receiving ISMI, but rather will look at income. To get a mortgage of £100K you would need an income of over £25K.

frostyfeet

Capital set aside for buying a house can be disregarded for longer than the standard 6 months, if reasonable. This means it's at the discretion of an Income Support Decision Maker so go and talk to them, they may be willing to extend the period due to your circumstances. If not, would it be possible for you or your husband to get a part time job of 16 hours a week? This would entitle you to Working Tax credits, they dont take the capital into account but they do take interest into account, after the first £300 but not neccesarily straight away. If there is a possibility that you either of you could do this, ask for a better off calculation at the Jobcentre and they will work out whether it would be worth your while.

suelees1

They'll write to you near the end of the 26 weeks so you can explain again why you've still got the capital. As frostyfeet says they will disregard if it's considered reasonable

Fat_Fairy

Thanks, all.

Daff Duck we don't 'expect' to be handed a mortgage just for nothing, we are in our current situation because my husband has become physically disabled through illness and we have an Autistic son, therefore my husband is unable to work (after working and paying into the system for 35 years) and i have to look after them both. The law states that we are able to take on a mortgage for a house at this stage if it is suited to the needs of the disabled members of the family. We don't actually want to do this but we need a home.

It's hard to speak to the decision makers - I am in Orkney and they are in Clydebank. Communication was very limited over the last 3 months whilst they were investigating our situation re the capital. However, it's good to know that they will write at the end of the 26 week period. Unfortunately as we cannot get a date for when our housing association house might be ready I fear we might be scuppered with that but I will try.

Frostyfeet i can't get a job because i really am needed full-time for care of my son and husband. I have tried working both full and part time before but it was just too problematic, especially in the school holidays. My husband doesn't have a lot of mobility and isn't reall able to look after our son who can be quite demanding. Thanks, though, i'd love to work if i could.

Fat_Fairy

dmg24 wrote: »

It is possible to have ISMI paid on a new mortgage under certain circumstances (detailed in the link). However, the likelihood of any lender offering a mortgage would be extremely low. They will not offer it on the basis of receiving ISMI, but rather will look at income. To get a mortgage of £100K you would need an income of over £25K.

ah, well that has never been explained to us. I wonder how anyone else on Income Support gets a mortgage of up to 100k then?. I was under the impression that there are lenders who participate in the scheme and understand the ISMI system?.

dmg24

Fat_Fairy wrote: »

ah, well that has never been explained to us. I wonder how anyone else on Income Support gets a mortgage of up to 100k then?. I was under the impression that there are lenders who participate in the scheme and understand the ISMI system?.

Lenders do understand ISMI, but primarily for those who already have mortgages and then have to claim IS. The issue is that, if for any reason your ISMI was to stop (which it could do for a multitude of reasons), you would still need to pay the mortgage. Also, you would need some way to pay back the capital element of the mortgage.

For information, you could be looking at a payment of over £700 a month for the interest plus capital elements of a £100K mortgage.

dmg24

Also, if someone was to offer you a mortgage, it is likely to be at a very high interest rate, and therefore the interest element may not be fully covered by ISMI.