First time buyer claiming TRS

[Hana]

Hi, I am looking to get some straight forward information on claiming TRS!

I am a first time buyer having purchased my property in June 2008. I was receiving approx €320/month of TRS from July until December for what I thought was my own relief on the mortgage and not including my partners relief.

Customer services in TRS are telling me that this amount was for myself and my partner but i can't understand this given that my partner only registered for TRS in March of this year.Also do we both not qualify for TRS refund for January-December 2008 even though we purchased the property in June. Is the eligible amount for first time buyers €10,000.00 per single person or is this for both? We paid approx €8,100.00 interest on the mortgage in the first year.

 

[rosey]

Hi Hanna,
I'm not entirely sure- and you can check this but as far as I know- in my experience-TRS is not a tax credit given to individuals-the bank now deducts it from what you have to pay- so the mortgage payment you are making- I assume there is one payment per month coming from either you or your partner's account- then that one payment has already had the TRS for the full mortgage applied to it.
If you apply for TRS in the same year that you get the mortgage then you don't get any refund-the way it works is that the bank applies any back payment due to you as a reduction in the mortgage payment amount when all paperwork for the TRS application etc has gone through...
It seems in your situation that it was assumed that the whole mortgage was being paid by you-(perhaps account is in your name?)...TRS was calculated on the whole mortgage figure and applied accordingly- therefore as far as I understand...if you had alerted them that there were two people contributing there would be another way of working it out........( I know you can fill out 2 forms but in practice most people pay one mortgage payment between them and it make most sense to apply TRS to the payment)
Basically, I'm maybe not being clear but what I mean is that the TRS is calculated on the fact of first time buyer status if relevant and the mortgage interest that is being paid on the mortgage- regardless of how many people are actually paying....therefore just because 2 people are paying your mortgage interest and I'm paying mine alone- it's the same- the issue is how much mortgage interest is being paid...that's what the TRS is calculated on...you won't get double the amount of tax relief- really you are entitled to half each...
I hope this helps- I'm sure if you ring Citizens Advice Bureau they might explain more clearly than me