By
odihost on April 1st, 2012
There is plenty of information out there concerning the disability living allowance, but at other times, this information is usually so much mixed up with fiction, to the extent that the information can easily become unprofitable. In this article, we are going to look at the finer details of the law when it comes to the disability living allowance, so that you can have much more information than just the basics.
Special Rules For The Terminally Ill
The first category of rules that we shall be looking at is none other than the rules that are there for the “terminally ill”. I have put the words “terminally ill” in quotation marks because it is my sincere belief that there is absolutely nothing like terminal illness. However, the system of the UK taxation is such that if in the opinion of a medical doctor, you have less than 6 months to live, then your process of claiming for the money with be fast tracked so that you can make money in a much faster way. Â
If You Are Over 65
Generally, people who are 65 years and over are not entitled to a disability living allowance. This is because they have got social security to take care of some of there problems. However, if at all a person is over sixty five years and the same person has a mental or physical disability that creates a problem with him moving about, the person can apply for an attendance allowance. When applying for the attendance allowance, you may be required to go for medical examinations, but this will not be mandatory.
Medical Examinations
Whether you are talking about the disability living allowance or the attendance allowance which is entitled to those people who are 65 years of age and above, there are certain times that you will need to go for some medical exams. This will happen if you are required to do the required test. It is however extremely important to remember the fact that these exams are not mandatory as some people would rather have you believe.
As you continue to seek for more information about the disability living allowance, you are advised to remember the fact that if it happens that you are officially considered to be entitled to this benefit, you will not be disappointed. At the end of the day, you should always seek to be thoroughly informed about these benefits.
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/some-extra-information-about-the-disability-living-allowance-5784987.html
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By
admin on June 26th, 2010
Forget everything you thought you knew about the benefits of taking a variable-rate mortgage instead of locking in for the long term.
A new study suggests the security of a five-year mortgage costs little or nothing beyond a riskier variable-rate mortgage, providing you get a jumbo-sized rate discount.
“Interest costs on discounted closed five-year mortgages have been close to, and often lower than, those of variable-rate mortgages since late 1996,” senior Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. economist Ali Manouchehri writes in the study.
Homeowners have made variable-rate mortgages hugely popular in the past few years in the belief that you can save on interest costs by pegging your mortgage rate to your lender’s prime lending rate. As the prime rises, or as has generally happened in the past few years, fallen, so goes your mortgage rate.
The prime rate at the major banks is now 4.5 per cent, while the posted five-year rate at the big banks is 6.15 per cent. In just one year, the variable-rate choice would save you about $1,700 on monthly payments toward a $150,000 mortgage amortized over 25 years (assuming a level prime rate).
Historically, you would also have saved a lot. The CMHC study shows that five-year mortgages taken out from 1993 through 1998 would have cost anywhere from $50,000 to $5,000 in additional interest paid over the term of the loan (the example is based on a $100,000 mortgage amortized over 25 years).
The flaw with this analysis is that it doesn’t reflect real-world mortgage pricing. These days, very few people take out a mortgage without a sizable discount off the posted rates at major banks.
For that reason, the CMHC’s Mr. Manouchehri decided to compare discounted five-year mortgages with discounted variable-rate mortgages. Incidentally, five years is the most popular term by far for fixed-rate mortgages at about 59 per cent of the total.
The size of the discounts Mr. Manouchehri applied was based on the difference between posted major bank rates and the best deals available from other lenders. For five-year mortgages, he used a discount of 1.25 of a percentage point; for variable-rate mortgages, it was 0.4 of a point off prime.
For five-year mortgages taken out between 1993 and mid-1996, the five-year mortgage was costlier in terms of interest costs. Since then, however, variable-rate mortgages have generally been a little bit more expensive.
Obviously, there’s nothing in this study that decides the fixed-rate versus variable-rate debate once and for all.
In fact, the CMHC study may just confuse anyone who recalls some research done for Manulife Financial back in 2000 by York University finance professor Moshe Milevsky. His research found that the extra interest charged on a five-year mortgage would have cost $20,000 on average between 1950 and 2000 for a $100,000 mortgage amortized over 15 years.
To make some sense of the variable-rate versus five-year question, let’s go back to the CMHC study.
It shows that five-year mortgages, discounted or otherwise, were especially bad choices for a three-year period starting in mid-1993. Rates were high for a while back then, but they subsequently fell.
You were a spectator to these rate declines if you were stuck in a five-year mortgage, while people in variable-rate mortgages would have benefited almost immediately.
It’s a different world now, though. Five-year mortgage rates are close to a 50-year low, which suggests they’re far more likely to rise over their term than fall.
So what’s the best choice here, variable-rate or five-year fixed rate? People who want to pay rock-bottom mortgage rates for as long as possible will probably still want a variable-rate mortgage. Remember, you can lock this sort of mortgage into a fixed term without penalty in most cases.
The case for the five-year term looks almost as strong, though. First, the CMHC study tells us there may not be a significant cost to locking your mortgage in for five years, and you might even save a little over a variable-rate mortgage.
Second, the likelihood of higher rates in the years to come would suggest that this is a good time to lock in.
If you had a variable-rate mortgage discounted to 4 per cent, the prime would have to go up by 0.85 of a percentage point to equal the current five-year rate. That’s not a lot of ground to cover in the span of 12 to 18 months when the economy is doing well.
Arguably, the variable-rate versus fixed-rate debate is all about risks and rewards. Right now, the five-year option offers much less risk, and almost as much reward.
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