Homebuyer Fund annual review
Description
Each year, Victorian Homebuyer Fund participants need to complete an annual review. This video explains the supporting information you need to provide.
Transcript
Welcome to the State Revenue Office video on completing your annual review for the Victorian Homebuyer Fund.
In this video we will refer to the terms ‘primary participant’ and ‘secondary participants’.
The primary participant is the person who the lender has indicated on the original application.
All other participants, if there are any, are known as secondary participants, which we will refer to as ‘secondaries’ for the rest of the video.
If approved for the Victorian Homebuyer Fund, there are a range of ongoing obligations a participant is required to fulfil.
Each year following the purchase of your home, you will be required to complete an annual review and provide supporting information.
Annual review information is collected by the State Revenue Office so we can monitor your continued eligibility for the scheme and compliance with the conditions of the Participation Agreement.
You will receive an email providing instructions on how to submit your annual review, on the first of the month that is the anniversary of your settlement date.
You are obliged under clause 10.1(c) of the Participation Agreement to provide information for the annual review within 10 business days of being asked to do so by the SRO.
The annual review request is emailed to the primary participant only. This is done via an automated email.
The primary participant is the one who must complete the annual review and upload all the relevant documents. This includes all the documents belonging to secondaries.
The primary participant will need to click the ‘Start annual review’ button on this email to begin the lodgement process.
If the annual review has not been submitted within 14 days, an automatic email reminder will be sent.
Please note and prepare all the documents listed above before going in to lodge the annual review.
Once the primary participant has completed the annual review and uploaded all the required documents, the secondaries will be required to verify the information.
A verification email will be sent to the secondaries directing them to log in to the portal and verify the submitted information.
Let’s move on to the portal.
Once you have clicked on ‘Start annual review’ you will be taken to the login page. Here, you will need to input your email and password.
If you have not accessed the portal previously, you will need to call or email the Homebuyer Fund Customer Service branch, requesting a password reset.
This applies for any primary participants or secondaries logging into the portal.
Once you have logged into the portal successfully, you will see under your action items that you have an annual review to complete.
Click ‘Start annual review’ to commence.
Once ‘Start annual review’ has been selected, you will be taken to a ‘Before You Begin’ screen, providing a list of all documentation required to complete the annual review successfully.
This is the same list outlined in the initial email sent to you to lodge your annual review.
Please take note of this screen as it does not appear again during the process, or you can refer to your initial email for the full details.
The primary participant must upload all information and documentation for both themselves and any secondaries.
This includes all participants’ last 3 payslips (your most recent 3 payslips), latest tax ready income statement (locate in your MyGov portal, and it must be for the most recent financial year), latest tax return or notice of assessment (locate in your MyGov portal, and must be for the most recent financial year), insurance certificate of currency (this is your building insurance; in the case where your insurance is not strata, please ensure the State of Victoria is added as a second mortgagee or financially interested party), latest electricity or gas bill and latest home loan statement, not your transaction account statement.
Once you have all documentation ready, select ‘Continue’.
Next, complete the annual review survey.
On this screen, complete each question by selecting ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Prefer not to say’.
Please also click the boxes for ‘evaluating the programs and services’ and ‘preparing marketing material’, if you consent with your details being shared.
All the way through the annual review process, you will see an ‘i' symbol on some of the questions. You can hover over this, and it will provide you with further information regarding the question.
Once done, select ‘Continue’.
Next is the ‘Ownership and Occupancy of the Property’ declaration.
Here, there are 4 questions to answer.
In the first question, you must provide details concerning whether you and/or others have been absent from the property for more than 3 months in the annual review period.
If the answer to this is yes, you will be required to advise for how long, the reason why and was there written consent from the Homebuyer team to do so.
Please note – if you are vacating the property for longer than 3 months, you will need to obtain written consent from the Homebuyer team.
Second question: in the past 12 months have you leased all or part of the property for any period of time, including short stays?
If yes, you will need to provide the details of the lease arrangement, provide supporting documentation and include any rental income in the lease of your gross annual details coming up.
Third question: have any participants obtained interest in any other land or property?
If yes, you will need to confirm whether the Homebuyer team provided written consent to do so.
If you did not obtain written consent from the Homebuyer team, you will need to provide the details about the interest.
And last question: have any participants given any other party, other than the Victorian Government, a security interest in or over the property?
Security interest means that have you used the property as collateral for another loan.
If yes, you will need to confirm whether the Homebuyer team provided written consent to do so.
If you did not obtain written consent from the Homebuyer team, you will need to provide the details about the security interest, the party it was given to and the circumstances in which it was given.
Once complete, select ‘Continue’.
Next, provide information regarding any maintenance and/or modification of the property.
Has insurance for the property been held continuously for the past 12 months?
Has an insurance claim of more than $10,000 been received?
If yes, was consent from the Homebuyer team given before the insurance money was used?
If no, you will need to provide details regarding the claim, what it was for, how much it was for and what it was used for or intended to be used for?
Was the property maintained in good condition?
Maintenance is considered functional checks, servicing, repairing, or replacing of necessary infrastructure.
This might include cosmetic changes, electrical and plumbing, general upkeep (interior, exterior painting, etc.), replacement of appliances and fittings.
Maintaining the property to an acceptable standard is a requirement of participating in the Victorian Homebuyer Fund.
Prior approval from either the lender or the SRO is not needed for maintenance.
Have any renovations or modifications been made to the property in the last 12 months?
If there has not been a significant renovation request lodged with your lender, you are not required to answer yes to this question.
Approved renovations are significant renovations.
Significant renovations add value to the property, are not subject to significant depreciation, involve structural changes and require prior approval.
Renovation requests must be raised with your lender, also known as your panel financier, prior to the work commencing.
Contact your lender to request an approved renovation. Once you have plans and any required permits, your lender will finalise approval with the SRO.
Minor renovations generally do not need to be declared.
They include work that meets any of the following criteria: costs $10,000 or less, does not involve any structural changes to the property, or does not require authorisation.
It is important to note that for the purposes of determining if a renovation is considered minor or significant, each individual piece of work is treated separately.
Next, have all the bills related to the property been paid on time?
For example: rates, gas, electricity, water, body corporate fees and taxes.
Once these questions are completed, select ‘Continue’.
Next you will be taken to the financial position declaration.
In the past 12 months, has any participant declared or committed an act of bankruptcy?
In the past 12 months, has any participant received a windfall gain of more than $10,000?
A windfall gain can be things like a gift, inheritance or lotto winnings.
If a participant has received one or more windfalls totalling more than $10,000, you will need to advise how much it was.
Under the participation agreement, 75% of any windfalls received must be paid back.
The Homebuyer Fund team will contact you for the details.
In the past 12 months, have all participants continued to hold a principal and interest loan which has not defaulted?
In other words, have all payments related to the loan continued to be made on time?
Finally, has the loan agreement been refinanced or changed in the last 12 months?
If yes, provide all the information about the change or refinancing.
Once all questions have been completed, select ‘Continue’.
Next you will be taken to the ‘Income details’ portion of the review.
Here you will need to enter all participants’ gross annual income, including any salary sacrifice amounts and allowances; that is before any tax is taken out.
This information can be obtained from the participant’s individual tax ready income statement, not from the notice of assessment.
Any income earned from leasing out the property must be included in the gross annual income.
A combined gross annual income will then be calculated automatically.
Is any participant self-employed?
Choose this option if your only source of income is derived from running your own business.
If the answer to this is yes, you will need to upload your notice of assessment and a copy of your tax return to substantiate your declared income.
Self-employed participants do not need to upload any pay slips or income statements.
Once this section is complete, select ‘Continue’.
Next you will be taken to the ‘File Upload’ section.
Here you will need to upload or drag and drop all supporting documents.
These include pay slips, tax assessment notice, tax ready income statement, the most recent certificate of currency, home loan statement and either a gas or electricity bill.
Here you will also be able to include any other supporting documents relevant to any of the other previous steps of the annual review.
Once you have uploaded all the documentation, hit ‘Continue’.
Finally check both boxes on the ‘Participation Declaration’ screen to declare all information provided is true, correct and accurate.
Then select ‘Submit’.
Once submitted, you will get to this screen providing you with an annual review ID.
You can choose ‘View your annual review’ if you wish.
All secondaries must verify the annual review via their access to the Victorian Homebuyer Fund portal.
Secondaries will receive an email requesting them to verify the annual review submitted by the primary participant.
The annual review is not officially submitted until all secondaries verify the annual return.
We hope this video has helped with lodging your annual review.
If you do have any queries and want to speak with us, please contact the Victorian Homebuyer Fund Customer Service area on (03) 7020 1549.
