Jim Stafford
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The Reasonable Living Expenses published by the Insolvency Service of Ireland each year affects tens of thousands of families in this country, as they are used by the banks and vulture funds to determine how much borrowers have available to pay on their mortgages. RLE’s are also used in Divorce cases in assessing maintenance payments.
The ISI have just published the updated RLE’s which are planned to come into effect from Tuesday, 26 April 2022. The main changes are below:
1. For a college-going child, the secondary school child allowance without a deduction for Child Benefit should continue to guide the costs for inclusion in the special circumstances category of the RLEs pending further research
2. Motor vehicle and home insurance costs are removed from set costs in the RLEs and are captured under a new building block of RLEs named ‘motor vehicle and home insurance. Where applicable, mortgage protection insurance costs will continue to be captured under the special circumstances category
3. An allowance for a one-week holiday in Ireland is provided in the RLE set costs.
4. Continued use of the special circumstances category of the RLEs to provide for private health insurance costs where deemed appropriate by the PIP or AI
I set out below a link to the full RLE’s (They are shaded in blue in the last row of Table 1 and Table 2 on pages 12 and 13 within the document)
[broken link removed]
The new monthly RLE’s for someone with one car may be summarised in brief as follows:
Single adult:€1,117.91
Couple: €1,541.42
Primary school child; €222.75
Secondary School Child: €443.06
Given the recent inflationary impact of the Ukraine crisis, the proposed RLE’s are already outdated, and the ISI should revise them upwards as soon as possible.
There will be a “Catch” 22 for some borrowers if their RLE’s do increase, as it might mean that they will be unable to meet their mortgage payments.
Jim Stafford
The ISI have just published the updated RLE’s which are planned to come into effect from Tuesday, 26 April 2022. The main changes are below:
1. For a college-going child, the secondary school child allowance without a deduction for Child Benefit should continue to guide the costs for inclusion in the special circumstances category of the RLEs pending further research
2. Motor vehicle and home insurance costs are removed from set costs in the RLEs and are captured under a new building block of RLEs named ‘motor vehicle and home insurance. Where applicable, mortgage protection insurance costs will continue to be captured under the special circumstances category
3. An allowance for a one-week holiday in Ireland is provided in the RLE set costs.
4. Continued use of the special circumstances category of the RLEs to provide for private health insurance costs where deemed appropriate by the PIP or AI
I set out below a link to the full RLE’s (They are shaded in blue in the last row of Table 1 and Table 2 on pages 12 and 13 within the document)
[broken link removed]
The new monthly RLE’s for someone with one car may be summarised in brief as follows:
Single adult:€1,117.91
Couple: €1,541.42
Primary school child; €222.75
Secondary School Child: €443.06
Given the recent inflationary impact of the Ukraine crisis, the proposed RLE’s are already outdated, and the ISI should revise them upwards as soon as possible.
There will be a “Catch” 22 for some borrowers if their RLE’s do increase, as it might mean that they will be unable to meet their mortgage payments.
Jim Stafford