Families with children can benefit most from the Hungarian Government Support Family Benefit – CSOK - Program
There are a great number of families interested in the Government Support Family Benefit (CSOK) program, however, just a few of them are eligible to apply or decide to hand in the loan applications.
On the basis of actual experiences the vast majority of the refusals of loan demands have failed for these reasons:
- lack of registered employment
- the risk of the advance promise of having children
- the prerequisites of the + 10 million loan
- the high price of new-build apartments
Few plans for couples to have kids
Legal conditions show that the aim of the government was to raise the number of families opting to have more children whereas the CSOK program is primarily beneficial for families that already have children. As specified in the statement of the Bank Committee only one third of the applicants decided to have one or two children.
In case of couples already with kids the conditions are more favourable
- there is no maximum age criteria for the benefit
- even widows and divorced can apply for it
- the risk of the accomplishment is greatly reduced
Speculative real estate investing
The other aim of the government with the CSOK program is to increase the building sector in Hungary. The examined construction companies, however, count only 3500-4000 plus new residential apartments yearly, which is a little to boost the construction industry and the real estate market. Large investments and European Union funds would be definitely needed to achieve this. Moreover, the ongoing investments are not private participations but in most cases speculative construction investments. Despite the prior promises generally the support is too low to buy a new-build apartment and the benefit cannot be claimed for renovations only for enlargements, which might be an ever bigger problem.
(Source: http://www.atv.hu/belfold/20160306-csok-ingyenmilliok-es-mas-mellekhatasok, by the editor of the blog ”CSOK Otthonteremtési Kedvezmények”)
