When advice is received of the marriage [de jure or de facto] of two eligible persons each in receipt of subsidised advances on separate properties, action to cancel one of the subsidies should not be taken as a matter of course. [ss.26.4 and Entitlement GO 3.7.9 refer].
As mentioned in Entitlement GO 3.7.9, this power is discretionary and has been in the legislation well before the insertion of the amendments allowing portability and the pooling of entitlements. Given the pooling provision, and presuming both parties met the entitlement criteria (ie did not own another dwelling etc) at the time they received their Certificates of Entitlement, action to cancel one of the subsidies would not normally be taken. Clients should, however, be made aware of their options should they be contemplating selling either or both of the DSH funded dwellings. Assuming either or both have an entitlement to a further advance, they are:-
- sell one house and use the discharged entitlement to purchase equity in the other under the pooling arrangements;
- sell both houses and pool both entitlements on another.
Before being issued with Certificates of Entitlement under either option, clients would still need to satisfy the other conditions imposed by the legislation, such as continuing service eligibility, non-ownership of other dwelling-houses, and intention to occupy. The final decision is to be left to the applicants, particularly in view of the costs involved.