Mortgage relief change may take two months

IT COULD take up to two months before the Revenue Commissioners finalise mortgage relief entitlements, according to Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan as he faced a barrage of Opposition criticism over the “fiasco”.

The row erupted in the Dáil following revelations that mortgage relief would be suspended for thousands of homeowners, and the Minister acknowledged that “it may take two months for this arrangement to be finalised by the Revenue Commissioners”, because it entailed an “enormous volume of work”.

Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton accused the Government of making an “absolute dog’s breakfast” of the “withdrawal of mortgage interest relief” and “people are facing a weekend where they are not sure what their mortgage payments net are going to be from next month onwards”.

Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton said “we are told that 500,000 people who have continuing entitlement or likely continuing entitlement to the mortgage relief will lose it tomorrow simply because the Minister and his advisers did not anticipate the impact of the change they announced” in the Budget.

There were warnings months ago of difficulties with the mid-year tax code changes, and the Minister had “ample time to anticipate those difficulties” and avoid this “fiasco”. He added that “we have seen far too often this Minister and his colleagues announce initiatives, then find they cannot implement them”.

Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said “those who will suffer most as a result of this measure are those who already have been extensively penalised by this Government’s measures” in the last two budgets.

Mortgage relief will be maintained for first-time buyers and those who moved up to another house or improved their house within the last seven years, Mr Lenihan said. He stressed that “there will be no change for a first-time buyer”.

Non first-time buyers “do not need to do anything at this stage”, and the vast majority of mortgage holders could be dealt with through their arrangements with financial institutions.