Revenue carries out continuous compliance checks on lenders to ensure the correct operation of the mortgage interest relief scheme.
As part of the process, each main lender is required to submit a monthly electronic download to Revenue setting out the amount of qualifying interest paid by each borrower and the amount of mortgage interest relief allowed in respect of each qualifying loan in the previous month. The smaller lenders and local authorities are required to submit annual files setting out similar information.
Each month Revenue cross-checks all of the information provided by the lenders against its own databases and any discrepancies are very quickly queried with the particular lender. The most recent compliance checks to be completed related to May 2017 during which 283,158 TRS accounts were reviewed. Following the review 2,687 queries were raised with the various lenders of which only two still remain to be resolved.
In addition to the monthly cross-checking reviews, any queries or complaints received by Revenue from individual borrowers are fully investigated and followed up with the lender concerned.
