Support for Mortgage Interest ***WON***

[terrypc]

Well there is a difference in that if you were earning £210 a week in full-time work, you could claim Working Tax Credit!

[Nystagmite]

Not always

[terrypc]

I can only think of self-employment as being the only exclusion to a single person working over 37 hours on £210 a week (below min wage that is) and not getting WTC.

[ANDYANDFLO]

Hi AndyandFlo

 

Have you appealled? Or taken any legal advice?

 

I would say this:

 

The material faxt of the case is that the mortgage you have IS for your curent home, where you live, never mind any previous finance. Therefore you are entitled to SMI, They are splitting hairs and trying it on.

 

It matters not whether you owned or did not before you claimed Pension credit - that is the material question. As you already had the mortgage and the house before you got Pension Credit, then I'd say you have a good chance.

 

Also, if the huse is in your sole name and you have ohers living there who are also in receipt of any benefit, they can claim for YOUR MORTGAGE under the housing costs regs. To prevent their homelessnes, the DWP has to pay any mortgage costs that the owner of the property cannot pay as long as both are living there. This is worth a try.

 

It all depends on whether you have appealed or missed the 28 day deadline.

 

If you missed the deadline, you can re-apply for SMI and then appeal on their decision of turning you down.

 

I was a benefit advisor before having to stop work.

 

Thanks, I seem to be hijacking your thread. Is that OK by you or should I start another one?

I saw your posting which interested me in the first place.

 

I still get some guaranteed pension credit, but not the housing costs. They decided against me in March 2010, that the mortgage doesn't count. I just accepted that and have struggled through since then.

They quoted:

 

You will only get help towards mortgage interest payments for a mortgage or loan to buy or improve your home.

 

It is a little complicated. My wife has the house in her name only, and the personal unsecured loan was given to me by a friend, and I gave it to her to buy the house with. Then she got the mortgage in her name only. I have never featured as owning the property or anything to do with it. You could say I am a 'long term lodger' in the property. We have been married for over 30 years. I signed a document drawn up by her solicitor when she bought the house with the personal loan that I would not have any call upon the property under any circumstances and that I would vacate the property at any time if my wife served notice on me.

For those few weeks before the mortgage came through for her, the deeds and the land registry show her as sole owner and that there is no charge or mortgage over the property. So the charge put on the property was when the mortgage came through. She therefore owned (on paper) the property outright for those couple of weeks.

That's why the Pension Service are saying that it was 'Equity Release' as she allbeit for a few weeks owned the property outright. What she did with the money from the mortgage she could quite rightly have kept for herself, but instead gave it to me so that I could pay back by friend.

Yes the mortgage is on the home, but it was not used to buy it. She already owned it for which I had a personal debt to repay.

They told me that the criteria was that the mortgage had to be for the purchase of the property, and is there to stop people remortgaging one year, taking the cash and then claiming a benefit the next year. They look at the 'history' of ownership and how the property was originally financed even if it was 25 years ago! Well that's what they say.

I can't see them paying out on the mortgage as we are a couple and whatever I claim for must include her.

The whole thing seems to hinge on the facts that

a. It was an unsecured personal loan with no paperwork or interest being charged in my name.

b. I again loaned this money to my wife with no preconditions written down other than she give me the mortgage money when it came through.

c. The home was 'owned' outright by her before a bone fide mortgage was taken out by her.

d. My wife was under no obligation to give me the equity released by the mortgage.

[Nystagmite]

I can only think of self-employment as being the only exclusion to a single person working over 37 hours on £210 a week (below min wage that is) and not getting WTC.

 

As well as being under 25, earning £210 a week and working less than 30 hours a week.

 

It's only £16 a week they'll get.