Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 21 April 2021
691. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will commission the Housing Agency to conduct a study into the housing needs of persons who have experienced a relationship breakdown and subsequently lost their family home but due to income and prior home ownership are not eligible for social housing or for any of the affordable or private purchase first-time buyer supports. [18537/21]
View answerA number of measures can help address the housing needs of persons who have experienced a relationship breakdown, which I have detailed below.
Under Section 20 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 and Regulation 22(1) of the Social Housing Assessment Regulations 2011, a household shall be ineligible for social housing support if it has alternative accommodation that the household could reasonably be expected to use to meet its housing need, either by occupying it or by selling the accommodation and using the proceeds to secure suitable accommodation suitable for the household’s adequate housing.
However, Regulation 22(2) provides that this ineligibility does not apply where an applicant for social housing support owns accommodation that is occupied by his or her spouse, from whom he or she is formally separated or divorced. Under the enactment, a deed of separation is sufficient to set aside this ineligibility ground, and it is not necessary to await judicial separation or divorce to get a decision on social housing support in these cases.
In order to provide more flexibility to local authorities to deal with cases where the ownership of the family home had not yet been finalised, the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014 amended section 20 of the 2009 Act. Local authorities may now provide such households with social housing support under the Rental Accommodation Scheme or the Housing Assistance Payment scheme until ownership of the family home is resolved in a formal separation or divorce settlement.
With regard to the provision of affordable homes to purchase, building on the General Scheme for Affordable Housing 2020, I intend to bring the Affordable Housing Bill to Government for consideration in the very near future. This will outline the provisions to allow for the introduction of two new affordable purchase schemes. This first provides for the delivery of affordable homes on local authority land and is supported by the Serviced Sites Fund. The second is the the Affordable Purchase Shared Equity Scheme which will provide for the delivery of more affordable homes by private developers. Whilst these schemes will be targetted primarily at First Time Buyers, active consideration is being given to accommodating those who have experienced relationship breakdown.
Separately, as a general rule, to ensure the effective targeting of limited resources, the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan Scheme is available to credit-worthy first-time buyers to access sustainable mortgage lending to purchase new or second-hand properties in a suitable price range, where they cannot obtain sufficient mortgage finance from a commercial lender.
However, applicants who are separated or divorced may be treated as first-time buyers, in accordance with the regulations, if they meet certain conditions, including:
- they are separated or divorced under a court order or by a separation agreement;
- the property being purchased is the first property since leaving the family home;
- they have left the family home and retain no interest in it; or
- the other party has remained in the family home.
In meeting the conditions as set out above, in particular that the other party has remained in the family home and that the potential applicant has relinquished any rights they had over that property, no financial gain should have been made by the potential applicant in exchange for relinquishing their rights to the property in this manner. Were the individual to have made a financial gain in releasing their rights to the property, such as being bought out by the other party who remains resident in it, they would be deemed to have been compensated for their interest in the property, and therefore not be eligible as a first-time buyer.
The final decision on loan approval is a matter for the relevant local authority and its credit committee on a case-by-case basis. Decisions on all housing loan applications must be made in accordance with the Regulations establishing the scheme and the credit policy that underpins the scheme, in order to ensure prudence and consistency in approaches in the best interests of both borrowers and the lending local authorities.
