The grants and schemes to help you save

Improvement Work in Lieu of Local Authority Housing Scheme (IWILS)

That’s the unwieldy name for the council doing up privately owned accommodation, which is unsuitable for you, but is instead of giving you direct local authority housing.

To qualify, you must be on the social housing waiting list and living in private accommodation, or already a social or AHB tenant with the option to move into or buy private housing, and return your existing property back to the council.

You can also get approval if you already own your own home, but it’s over-crowded or sub-standard and you can’t afford works.

The local authority organises and pays for upgrades. You pay it back based on what you can afford over 15 years. If you sell up, you have to repay in full. Applications are ranked by urgency.

Local Authority Home Improvement Loans

Aimed at those who can show they have been refused by a bank or credit union for a home improvement loan (say due to low income or poor credit history). Your house must need repairs or an extension due to overcrowding, and it’s means tested. The maximum loans are €38,000 where there is already a mortgage or €15,000 where there is none. There is interest payable on the loan.

Repair and Lease Scheme (R&L)

The big hullabaloo over this scheme ended in a bit of a damp squib. It’s hard to get, the rules are onerous and many properties either don’t qualify or aren’t suitable.

Anyhow, if you do, I think it’s a great idea, bringing run-down and derelict homes back into use for onward leasing as social housing. The scheme is aimed at owners of second properties who can’t afford the repairs to bring it to rentable standard. The grant is upfront and you agree a lease with the council or AHB with the value of repairs offset gradually against rental income.

Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant

This is a different thing to the R&L Scheme above, but also aimed at refurbishing vacant and derelict homes with a view to inhabiting them again. But to get this grant, you must live in the house afterwards as your residence.

The grant is generous and has been increased to €30,000 if the property is “vacant” (there’s all kinds of qualifiers for this), with an additional top up of €20,000 if it’s deemed ‘derelict’ too (i.e. uninhabitable).

From May 1 it is being extended to vacant properties built before 2007 (it used to be 1993), so that might include some ‘ghost’ houses built during the excesses of the boom.

However, and this can be the sticking point for people I’ve spoken to about it, you must first own the house, funding the balance of the works by a mortgage and banks are proving very shy at lending on a ‘project’ they don’t know the cost of, and which doesn’t confer as an asset until it’s complete.

It’s best suited as far as I can see, to building professionals (eg an architect who wants to move back to granny’s cottage out of the city, or a first time buyer with a bit of parental lolly or divorced with the proceeds of the family home under your belt and a fresh start in mind). It’s funded by the Croi Conaithe (Towns) Fund.

€5m paid out for FSPO claims

The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman reported 4,781 complaints to its office in 2022, taken against life insurance companies and banks over investments, returns or other issues.

Over €5m was returned to customers in successful claims. But just 100 claims related to the departure of Ulster Bank and KBC, both of whom have handled their leaving relatively well.

Bad customer service remained the biggest issue the FSPO dealt with including failure to provide proper information. Banks, rather than insurers received the most complaints, and the tracker mortgage scandal isn’t over yet: 139 new cases were reported in the year.

The FSPO, unlike some other regulators, wields a very big stick and its decisions are binding. It can be found here.