Buying out council - Affordable Housing

hi i am in the same boat with dcc.they tell you diff stories everytime you ring.they really dont no what there doing in there.they all have heads like siv's,i am also trying to buy them out but my valuation is a lot lower than theres.and they wont come down because if they do.they will lose the claw back.basicly your stuck there for 20 years to fully own it.unless we all pull together and do something.im near enough to walking in and handing back my keys.even tho they wont accept that.well that will be there problem if i do deside to do.they wont be getting anymore payments from me then.,most of them in there dont even understand the affordable or shared ownership,
 
Hi Kenzo,

Trust me I've been so close to handing back my keys over the past couple of weeks. The only thing that stopped me is the fact that I'd get a bad credit rating and probably won't be able to buy another property, as the banks would consider it me a high risk.
 
it is all very confusing alright, i can see how they can see the Shared ownership easier to work out to buy them out etc... But at the end of the day, you have a mortgage with the bank, and you want to re-mortgage and pay them the claw back. In turn they'd be receiving the claw back so what is the issue. There is only 1 difference i can see in this, first is that with Shared Ownership, you have your mortgage with DCC, and with AH you have your mortgage with a bank or building society. You have already paid through your bank the money they wanted for the property and by re-mortgaging you will be able to pay the claw back. So it is exactly like what Shared ownership has done.... got a bank to pay off their loan. 1 difference can not mean you have to stay in your property and always be affordable housing until you sell it or 20 years passes.
 
Am I missing something....if you plan to stay in your aff home for 20 or more years then there is no need to worry is there? You only have to pay clawback to buy council out and the only reason I can see you would do this is if you intended to sell on? Otherwise who cares if it's still considered aff housing?! Your paying your mortgage etc and as fir saying I wantto 100% own my own place...sure the bank ownseveryones home unless they've fully paid their morgage so what's the sweat with dcc being on deeds for few years?

The clawback was based on a sound principle ie people not being able to buy at low prices and sell on at inflated sums this making profit. Given the turn if the Market this is no longer a concern but people did go into aff housing with eyes open (I hope) to the clawback clause.

I'm not agreeing or no with council or you guys just wondering where the difficulty arrises if you view your property as a long term home and sure if you don't well unfort that was a bad call choosing ah when the clawback was made clear from outset so you always knew moving on would be nigh on impossible no?

Like I'm currently hoping for shared ownership approval.. If approved I intend to buy a family home and am aware dcc will be on the deeds etc. That's fine with me as it is the contract I am willng to sign.

I don't want to upset anyone I just want to be clear in my own mind of the issue and also stress that the 'own my own place 100%' argument is dillusionsal unless your buying outright with cash that you owe to nobody ;)
 
yeah i have been on the verge of handing back keys also, the method of giving out units at the time was nothing short of scandalous.Not to mention the clawback management fees etc etc .My mortgage is with DCC and god help if you need to contact them , Still cannot understand why the clawback is 20 years , im currrently in a small 2 bed apartment, which was all i was entitled to at the time as didnt have kids. circumstances change and so should the rules to allow people like me either transfer to a bigger home or allow me to be a little bit more flexible with my mortgage provider allowing me the benefits of a private mortgage.
Can anyone tell me if its possible to transfer from one Affordable unit to another.
 
yes i went in well i taught with my eyes open,i was told i could buy out the afforable houseing no problem.but wasnt informed that the council will never con you with the valuation.i was shared ownership.and i bought them out last year ,so then i desided to buy out afforable while the money is low,i was getting loan improved from the bank no problem,but as i said about the dcc valuation is 50 thousand in the differnce.and thats a joke.i was onto colin deirdre marie geraldine.and not one of them no what there talking about ,i was told i can just give back the claw back and stay with them,just to come in with the chq,so when went in with the chq.they said no you cant do like this.ehh hello you told me to come in,so thats only 1 bad thing.i could write a book about them all.but ye i see were your comeing from about handing back the keys.never taught about being bad listed with banks.but maybe i will just sell.and hopefull make a small deposit to get a 2 bed,NESTA my mam said the same thing you said .to ask if its possible to transfer.so its worth trying anyways.if i had a 2 bed i would prob stay the 20 years.but impossible wit one bed if your gona have a family,they would have to do somthing because you cant be sleeping with your bf and your child in the one bed can you,
 
Yeah I agree the units provided are stupid. One beds are ridiculous and should be kept for senior housing by dcc IMHO. But I know when I looked into ah I was distinctly told by dcc guy. As well as most stuff I read during my research into the scheme, was hat unless I could get a property that I seen myself staying in for at least 10 years then I needed to look at the alternative schemes.

I fully accept people were just delighted to be offered a property they could afford in that bubble that existed but unfortunatly we are paying now for a lot of bad decisions that were made during boom times, not just ah!, and tbh I think that the liklihood of dcc scrapping the clawback is probably optimistic.

I'm sure people on fixed rates were shouting to be released on the basis that they bought the property cos was all they could afford and had to fix to ensure stabilty of repayments but now their circumstances have changed etc etc

Like I say, I'm not judging or arguing just making the point that dcc are not doing anything that is hugely objectionable in maintaining their stand on the clawback.
 
Oh and I would certainly ask about transfer but imagine if this could be done then they would be inundated with equests because like you say who wants to stay in a one bed.

And fully agree about the dcc info. You could ring 10 times in one day, speak to 10 diff people and get 10 diff answers to the same question. They are a minefield of confusion :(
 
maxol said:
Am I missing something....if you plan to stay in your aff home for 20 or more years then there is no need to worry is there? You only have to pay clawback to buy council out and the only reason I can see you would do this is if you intended to sell on? Otherwise who cares if it's still considered aff housing?! Your paying your mortgage etc and as fir saying I wantto 100% own my own place...sure the bank ownseveryones home unless they've fully paid their morgage so what's the sweat with dcc being on deeds for few years?

The clawback was based on a sound principle ie people not being able to buy at low prices and sell on at inflated sums this making profit. Given the turn if the Market this is no longer a concern but people did go into aff housing with eyes open (I hope) to the clawback clause.

I'm not agreeing or no with council or you guys just wondering where the difficulty arrises if you view your property as a long term home and sure if you don't well unfort that was a bad call choosing ah when the clawback was made clear from outset so you always knew moving on would be nigh on impossible no?

Like I'm currently hoping for shared ownership approval.. If approved I intend to buy a family home and am aware dcc will be on the deeds etc. That's fine with me as it is the contract I am willng to sign.

I don't want to upset anyone I just want to be clear in my own mind of the issue and also stress that the 'own my own place 100%' argument is dillusionsal unless your buying outright with cash that you owe to nobody ;)
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For me the reason I have been trying to buy the council out is basically due to:
  1. My 'mortgage' to the council is €900 per month. Less than 50% of this amount actually goes off my mortgage the rest is rent.
  2. The council continues to increase the rental part of the mortgage every year. This year it went up by €30, as they believe their equity in the property has INCREASED (not sure where they got that information from).
  3. If I buy the council out my mortgage payments would decrease by approximately €200 and I would get mortgage interest relief on 100% of my monthly mortgage rather than the 50%.
  4. Due to being shared ownership, if I want to move out and cannot sell the apartment, I am not entitled to rent the property in the meantime as it's against DCC rules. Therefore, the only way I can rent the property is to buy the council out.
  5. My circumstances have changed significantly and a 2 bed apartment is not big enough anymore.
So there are many reasons why people want to buy the council out without trying to profiteer and sell at an inflated price.
 
nathan, as you are shared ownership, this shouldnt be a problem then should it? i think the issue with it all is that it seems to be AH cannot buy out at moment without selling. I was in shared ownership and it was no issue to me to buy them out, and someone was talking to colin keane at the start of this week who said it was possible.
 
same as me i was an affordable home and claw back 12% and mortgage through the shared ownership.
I didnt go looking for my place, i went through affordable housing, our whole block of apt's are affordable housing. I just could not afford the affordable housing so i did it shared ownership.
 
yes Nathan I can totally see why you would want to buy out a shared ownership mortgage asap, and my understanding of the scheme, (i am currently hoping for approval) is that you can buy out no problem once a bank is willing to advance a mortgage.

Your difficulty in buying them out again brings you back to the fact that you bought AH with your shared ownership mortgage. its the AH principle of clawback that you signed up to. It's actually irrelevant that is a shared ownership mortgage cos the fact is if you had bought a property on the open market with the shared ownership mortgage then you would have no problem buying them out. unfortunatly i know that back not such a long time ago it would have been impossible to get an open market property with the limit of a shared ownership max amount and i understand why you felt you had to buy ah but the fact remains the terms weren't hidden or disguised.

I genuinely do hope that DCC look a things in light of the current economic and property market but i can also see the argument for them enforcing the contract.

so hypothetically if i bought a house 5 years ago and paid 500k. I now owe 400 on my mortgage. it is valued at 200k. I can't go to the bank and say but i need to sell cos i want a bigger home and the fact is the market has changed so just let me sell for 200k and call it quits?! I can't see this happening can you so I guess DCC are arguing why should they be different?

Devils advocate role is all i'm doing here just to tease out the logic of the situation.
 
I totally understand the point you are trying to make, but the fact is that the council are deliberately making it impossible for people.

Obviously you aren't aware of the government legislation protecting AH buyers from negative equity so your example above is irrelevant. The clawback is only there as a guide in the instance that the property price increases. If the property value decreases the clawback is then readjusted to suit the current market value.

This is quite different to buying on the open market and certainely does not excuse DCC for moving the goal posts to suite themselves.
 
nathan210705 said:
  1. The council continues to increase the rental part of the mortgage every year. This year it went up by €30, as they believe their equity in the property has INCREASED (not sure where they got that information from).
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This is something that really bothers me. There is no transparency in this. Every July you get a letter from them announcing that your rental portion has gone up by x amount in keeping with the terms of the shared ownership procedure. However all this means is that they get to decide every year, by God knows what method, that your property is now worth a certain amount and therefore what you owe has gone up or down (usually up, needless to say). They could be rolling dice to come up with the amount for all any of us know. It's really, really dodgy.
 
nathan210705 said:
I totally understand the point you are trying to make, but the fact is that the council are deliberately making it impossible for people.

Obviously you aren't aware of the government legislation protecting AH buyers from negative equity so your example above is irrelevant. The clawback is only there as a guide in the instance that the property price increases. If the property value decreases the clawback is then readjusted to suit the current market value.

This is quite different to buying on the open market and certainely does not excuse DCC for moving the goal posts to suite themselves.
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Nathan,

Is it not this very same Government Legislation that your referrring to in your post, that forms the basis / guidlines within which DCC and other councils throughout the country must operate within. I might be wrong in saying this but the situation is that the Dept of Environment writes the legislation on Affordable Housing /Shared Ownership etc etc and it is this legaislation that the councils must adhere to when it comes to clawback and other aspects of the AH /Shared Ownership schemes.

I think Maxol has hit the nail on the head so to speak when he said:
Your difficulty in buying them out again brings you back to the fact that you bought AH with your shared ownership mortgage. its the AH principle of clawback that you signed up to. It's actually irrelevant that is a shared ownership mortgage cos the fact is if you had bought a property on the open market with the shared ownership mortgage then you would have no problem buying them out.
It would appear as Maxol says above to be a simple case that you went and bought an AH property, and not a shared ownership property (as far as i can tell from the posts on here), so you are therefore subject to the restrictions of the AH scheme legislation.
 
gazza1 said:
...so you are therefore subject to the restrictions of the AH scheme legislation.
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Please explain to me what the restrictions are, because as far as I'm aware the only issue that I have is the fact that the council are overvaluing the property when I attempt to buy them out. So therefore, I have no leverage or options to move mortgages, rent the property, etc.
 
i dont think people quite understand what you are trying to say nathan.i think they think you angry about this because of the market value gone down and u shouldnt have to give back the council the clawback.but i am in the same situation as you at the moment with the valuation.my banks is giveing me a mortgage no problem,but they will only give me what my apartment is worth and there is 50thousand in the difference of the valuation.there for i shouldnt even have to give them back a clawback.there just big conners.its meant to be for people with low income.and there practicly taken all of our wages.and people only have morg now for 700-800.and were gona be paying 1250 when the interest rate goes back up.we would actually be helping out the council if they do a proper valuation.cus they need money they have no money there stuck with 3600 homes.and they cant sell them,,so if they let people buy them out they will get quite a few chqs,something will happen there is to many people giveing out about AFFORABLE,
 
kenzo said:
i dont think people quite understand what you are trying to say nathan.i think they think you angry about this because of the market value gone down and u shouldnt have to give back the council the clawback.but i am in the same situation as you at the moment with the valuation.my banks is giveing me a mortgage no problem,but they will only give me what my apartment is worth and there is 50thousand in the difference of the valuation.there for i shouldnt even have to give them back a clawback.there just big conners.its meant to be for people with low income.and there practicly taken all of our wages.and people only have morg now for 700-800.and were gona be paying 1250 when the interest rate goes back up.we would actually be helping out the council if they do a proper valuation.cus they need money they have no money there stuck with 3600 homes.and they cant sell them,,so if they let people buy them out they will get quite a few chqs,something will happen there is to many people giveing out about AFFORABLE,
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Thanks kenzo. This is exactly the point I was trying to make, albeit confusingly (well, for some people anyway).

Cheers,
 
well if the council are overvaluing the property then why dont you go and get a few estate agents to come in and see what they would value the property at on the open market if you were to sell (obviously dont tell em its AH property). Just pretend that your thinking of selling and putting the property on the market, and when you have a few valuations then go back to DCC with the average valuation and ask them to prove just how in God's name they are coming up with the high values they seem to arrive with using their valuer.
As regards the AH legislation I mentioned that you are restricted by, well I would go and have a look at the following sites which might shed more light on that side of things hopefully:
http://www.environ.ie/en/Development...rdableHousing/
and
www.affordablehome.ie
and

As I mentioned in my earlier post, its the Dept of Environment that writes the legislation and its this legislation which forms the guidelines/ policy within which the councils must operate their AH schemes / policies etc. It is of course upto each council how they operate their scheme but they must do so within the constraints of the legislation laid down by Dept of Environ. Maybe also contact the office of the Minister for Housing to find out more info on the legislation. Hope this is of some help to you.
 
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