The Help to Buy Scheme

The Help to Buy (HTB) scheme is an incentive for first time property buyers. The scheme helps individuals with deposits needed to buy or build a house or apartment. The incentive is that the scheme will give individuals an income tax and deposit interest retention tax (DIRT) refund. This refund extends up to four years of income tax and DIRT tax paid in Ireland in arrears. The incentive has a limitation to a maximum of 5 percent of the purchase value of a home up to a value of €500,000.

To qualify for the scheme, individuals must be first time buyers. The property bought or going to built must be newly built with the construction subject to the value added tax (VAT) in Ireland. The requirements of the Help to Buy scheme also involves taking out a mortgage on the property with a qualifying lender. The loan to value ratio must be at least 70%. This loan to value ratio denotes the percent of the loan that covers the purchase value of the property.

The scheme is estimated to contribute about …

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First experience with ‘Help to Buy’

We are currently undergoing our first experience with a client who wants to use ‘Help to Buy’ and the same issue has arisen at two different banks so we are comfortable that it is probably a teething issue that is live and current.

The problem is that the banks are telling us they need proof the person will qualify for the HTB scheme, but to qualify you have to have a signed contract, no borrower is going to sign a contract unless the bank will advance the loan factoring in the HTB because otherwise they may not be able to complete the loan.

The lenders had forewarned us that there would be problems, but this one seems very basic. They could just make the offer contingent on the person qualifying for the scheme. Otherwise it will mean that people are stuck waiting for the contractors name to show up on what is so far a very short list, and they are also putting the kart before the horse in terms of how it was meant to operate.

For now all …

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