Re-mortgaging an affordable house

Has anyone re-mortgaged their house bought under the affordable housing scheme with another mortgage lender. I currently have my mortgage with the County Council for the past 3 1/2 years

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Have never heard of it been done, but how about ringing IIB, BOI and EBS as they are the three banks that deal with affordable housing, but doesnt the council offer cheaper interest rates than the banks??

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Hi, as far as I know I don't think you can remortgage if your mortgage is with Dublin City Council....but i'm not 100% on that.....I think it is possible if you are with one of the banks however you must provide them with the details of the clawback % that the council are owed in the case of selling the house...........

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Just been speaking to a local mortgage company and they said it is possible but you can only re-mortgage for the amount you acutually owe the County Council and an extra 20k .......

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

you can remortgage with any mortgage lender. not all lenders restrict you to the max €20,000 additional on top of council but out.

Shop around.

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

I bought an affordable house with Fingal four years ago and one of my neighbours in the same estate remortgaged. The only thing about remortgaging with fingal is that you have to pay back the clawback when you remortgage which will mean that your mortgage payments will increase significantly! I examined the option recently and though I would love to do it it would mean I would go from having mortgage payments of less than 700 a month to mortgage payments of more than 1000+ a month and that really was not an option! This is the case with Fingal and I dont know if its the same with all of the Councils! Something to bear in mind!

D

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

They should only do that when you sell to someone else, because the deeds are still in your name they should be entitled to the clawback. Thats what I would say, I'm no expert tho I'd check it out if I were you.

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Hi guys, first time user so it's been a couple of weeks since the last email on this subject was posted. I have been with DCC for 3 years now on Affordable housing scheme and after a lenghty process with my broker to buy them out, I have been told that NO bank will offer a re-mortgage facility because of some "legal issue" currently ongoing with this scheme. Apparently there is a clause under the affordable housing scheme which is stopping them (the banks) from offering this service?? Checked with BOI and they can offer a mortgage in order to purchase under the affordable housing scheme but you CANNOT transfer your affordable housing mortgage from a local authority to another financial institition? Has anyone already done this and if so, with whom? Surely this is completely illegal, i.e. you have no choice but to stay with the council until the clawback expires?! Alternatively do you have to come up with the cash to re-pay the clawback separately of the o/s balance on your mortgage? Thanks in advance.

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

you can remortgage with a bank if you already have an affordable house with the council. But you have to pay the clawback back to the council first. the clawback is based on the current market value of your property now, not when you bought it.

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Can anyone advise me on if I can rent out a ROOM even though I live in an affordable house. Just to rent ROOM not HOUSE

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

The only restrictions applicaple to an house bought under the affordable housing scheme is that you have to seek permission to rent out the house (the house as opposed to rooms in the house) and the clawback on sale. Other than those you can do whatever any other home owner can do including use the rent a room scheme to rent rooms. As long as the house remains your PPR. Hope this is the answer you were looking for!

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Thanks a million at times I wonder if I did the right this in buying this house from the County Council on the affordable housing scheme

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Thanks to snickers for answering my question. I was wondering if I could pay the clawback back first and then re-mortage but wasn't sure and my broker didn't even suggest this as an alternative!

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

But for Gods sake, wouldn't you be mad to pay the claw back to the council just to remortgage?

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Of course vanilla, it does seem crazy for me to pay the claw back just to re-mortgage, but realistically people need to have the ability to re-mortgage or release equity on their homes for things like home improvements (I for one, don't have a secret stash of cash anywhere to re furbish my home with new kitchen etc!) and unless I remortgage now, the clawback will keep increasing with the value of the property. I definitely would not be able to keep my mortgage with the council for 20 years simply to avoid re-paying the clawback, or even 10 years just to get a tiny reduction on the clawback. As the council does not offer any type of remortgage or top up loan facility (as they are not regulated financial institutions), one would assume that you have to look elsewhere to re-mortgage which unfortunately means that you have to pay the clawback. Going back to my original problem, I have spoken with another broker who tells me that it IS possible to remortgage for the complete amount of the mortgage plus the clawback and that the other broker who told me it wasn't possible is talking crap?! Lot of confusion surrounding this scheme. One thing's for sure, it may seem like a great scheme to help people get on the ladder, but it sure isn't easy to get out of! I would not recommend this scheme to anyone unless it was absolutely their very last resort. FYI, to all people considering this scheme, find out first of all if you can qualify for a shared ownership mortgage and bite the bullet and pay the actual value of the property (if of course you can get the right amount). The reason I say this is that I was very kindly informed by the council, after I completed the transaction for affordable housing, signed contracts etc) that I could've actually qualified for a shared ownership mortgage without going down the affordable housing route to avail of the discount. Obviously my mortgage repayments would've been higher from day one but at least I would not have to repay the clawback!

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

the clawback will keep increasing with the value of the property.

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Is this the case for you? I know that for the clients I have acted for in affordable houses the amount of the clawback is set when the property is purchased. It then decreases each year by 10%, so if you hold on to it for 10 years there is no clawback.

Going back to my original problem, I have spoken with another broker who tells me that it IS possible to remortgage for the complete amount of the mortgage plus the clawback and that the other broker who told me it wasn't possible is talking crap?!

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It is my understanding that the council will allow remortgaging but that individual lenders will have to enter into a legal agreement with each council before this is possible. Most of the lenders don't seem to be interested in doing this- too much work when they can find loads of other clients they don't need to do this for. However I know that one housing officer has told me that some people have remortgaged- I think with the EBS. But it differs for each area. But if the clawback is paid back then the legal agreements are no longer necessary. However this is a huge step- I feel it is paying back the clawback completely unnecessarily.

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

The upper limit on the value of a property you can buy under shared ownership is so low that you wouldn't be able to buy anywhere in Dublin, apart from maybe a 1 bed apartment in the middle of nowhere, or an affordable house of course.

Surely these issues will be sorted out eventually though? I mean, you can currently mortgage an affordable house in DCC area with a few banks, so why couldn't you transfer to these banks after the one year is up?

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Does this also mean you cannot pay off your debt early without incurring the clawback fee ? as that is effectively what you are doing by remortgaging away from the council .

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

The clawback is based on the market price you receive for the property. If you received a 33% discount, then you will pay them 33% of whatever the property is valued at when you sell.

My understanding was always that you can change to another mortgage provider under the scheme after 1 year without incurring any clawback. Of course, this is dependant on the mortgage provider being willing to enter the scheme. If there are legal disputes then you would have to buy the council out completely to remortgage, which wouldn't really make sense.

Re: Re-mortagaging an affordable house

Sammie said:

Hi, as far as I know I don't think you can remortgage if your mortgage is with Dublin City Council....but i'm not 100% on that.....I think it is possible if you are with one of the banks however you must provide them with the details of the clawback % that the council are owed in the case of selling the house...........

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no yu cant remortgage with fingal