Members of ACCA who hold a practicing certificate general or practicing certificate audit are invited to participate in the Abhaile scheme and be listed as one of the expert accountants available to assist people in mortgage arrears under this scheme. The full scheme terms and conditions were sent by e-mail to members entitled to participate. If you did not get a copy of the terms and conditions, please e-mail aidan.clifford@accaglobal.com prior to signing on for the scheme. The terms and conditions were set by the Department of Social Protection and by signing on you are agreeing to those terms and conditions.
In summary the scheme allows for the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) to issue a letter requesting specific advice and a voucher for €500 to pay for that advice, to a borrower in mortgage default. The borrower then chooses an advisor from the public list and makes an appointment with the accountant and presents the letter and voucher. The accountant performs the assignment or provides the advice per the MABS letter. MABS pays the accountant directly for the assignment. Examples of the types of assignment are listed in an appendix to the terms and conditions document.
The previous long term mortgage forbearance scheme where banks paid €250 to participating accountants for advice given to borrowers on long term mortgage forbearance offers, is still in existence. However, this scheme has started a natural winding down as the number of borrowers to which the scheme applies, reduces. The Abhaile scheme will run in parallel to the old scheme and is mainly for borrowers who are unable to obtain or sustain a long term forbearance offer.
The Department of Social Protection will maintain only one list of expert accountants so subscribing to this current list will mean that you are agreeing to provide advice under both the old and new scheme.
If you have more than one office and wish to have other offices listed, then please enter your details separately for each office. The final list with ACCA and the other professional body accountants who also participate, will be a publically available searchable list maintained by the Department of Social Protection.
To sign up please click book online