Changes expected in the conditions of the Home Start program

The Government has submitted a draft proposal for public consultation, modifying the conditions of the Home Start program, which will be open until 14 October. The draft takes into account both the experiences from the first month of the loan program, which has been available for applications for the past month, as well as the feedback received.

The proposal aims to clarify and ease the conditions for first-time homebuyers. Currently, applicants qualify if they have not owned an urban residential property in the past 10 years and hold no more than 50% ownership in a single property. The new amendment would facilitate this provision by allowing cases where the applicant owned two eligible properties simultaneously, provided that ownership of the previous property ends within 180 days of acquiring the new one.

The draft also introduces three further concessions. It would no longer disqualify applicants who previously demolished or had an urban residential property demolished, either voluntarily or by an authority order. Ownership of a residential property valued at up to HUF 15 million would not be an exclusion either. Additionally, applicants who acquired property subject to usufruct rights, where the usufructuary still resides in the property, would remain eligible. For previously sold properties, the usufructuary must have lived there until the moment of the sale.

The requirement to prove two years of social security coverage remains, with stricter conditions applying to the last 180 days. Its scope has been expanded to include Hungarian citizens working in EU institutions within the European Economic Area, who may now also be eligible for the subsidized loan. Moreover, the modification allows for exemptions from the social security requirement if the applicant receives child home care allowance or care allowance, or if the applicant is classified as having reduced work capacity. Additionally, the deadline of 1 January 2022 would be removed, meaning that the Home Start program could also be used for finishing construction projects that had already begun before that deadline. Furthermore, with the submission of additional collateral, the loan could be disbursed in advance, even before the full own contribution has been used, though the first installment cannot exceed 30% of the total loan amount.

According to the proposal, repayment will not be blocked if it was ordered due to non-fulfillment of the childbearing commitment, and the applicant proves that the government office accepted a request for leniency regarding repayment of the previous support.