Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10243 on 7 September 2022 which shows the number of successful applications to the Home Owners Support Fund in the last 6 years. Where a social landlord acquires a property through the scheme, the homeowner will remain in their home on Scottish Secure Tenancy terms. The Scottish Government does not collect data on homeowners’ circumstances after their application has successfully concluded.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The following table shows Home Owners Support Fund (HOSF) budget and expenditure for each of the last six years broken down by Mortgage to Rent (MTR) and Mortgage to Shared Equity (MTSE). HOSF is a demand led scheme and any difference between budget and actual spend reflects demand in that year and so there is no underspend or carry forward.

Guidance documents for each participant are available at Support for homeowners at risk of homelessness - Homelessness - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). HOSF officials regularly provide support and information to applicants, Money Advisers, Social Landlords, Trustees and Lenders on individual applications.

The following table shows how many staff have been allocated to the Home Owners Support Fund in recent years. Staff are fully trained and highly experienced and levels have been sufficient to meet demand for the Fund.

My officials give priority to cases with repossession orders and where a trustee is forcing the sale of a property, the requirement for secured loan payments to be 3 months in arrears will be waived. The Scottish Government does not hold data relating to the number of these types of applications that have been processed.

HOSFGN/002 was published in April 2017. The Home Owners Support Fund property threshold guidance is being considered as part of the current review and will be updated if required.

The Scottish Government does not collect data in relation to the turnaround of unsuccessful applications. The following table shows the average processing time in months for successful applications during each of the last six years.

We are aware there may be constraints in the market place and we are working closely with a number of Scottish firms and with industry bodies and forums to monitor market availability, therefore we are able to prioritise Single Building Assessments.

All the 15 buildings using the grant based approach have been issued grant letters and had initial payments to allow contracts to be placed. All have fire engineers and surveyors working on assessments.

Since 1 September 2018, the Scottish Government has paid £344,825 to Communities Housing Trust to administer the national Self Build Loan Fund.