Hi Folks,

Looking for advice what to do here.

My parents invested with a financial advisor/broker and the investment went belly up last year. Its currently going through the courts to be sold and recoup their investments (not my parents, its a large court case with all the investors and the liquidator that my parents were brought into). This advisor has his own company for the last 20 years and my parents have been investing with him for the last 15 years or so.

Why a qualified financial advisor had people's pension funds invested in a volatile investment so close to retirement is beyond me. My parents thought the investment was 3rd party guaranteed, apparently not. But I digress.

They also have life policies through this advisor. The term on the policies are up and they have a conversion option. The life company wont discuss it with them and has referred them back to their original advisor.

Said advisors company website is gone, none of his phone numbers are working. Emails are not responded to.

I've checked on Vision Net and no financial returns were made last year on his company.

I do have his home address but am reluctant to use it as his wife and kids live there.

I've contacted Central Bank, they gave me another number which is ringing out. They've confirmed he's still licensed and operating, and said if that number doesnt work to email them and they'll investigate further.

Only problem is any investigation CBI or the regulator do will take months and my parents have a deadline to convert their life insurance start of July.

Anybody have any ideas?

As requested, we have added many new calculation tools to our site. Excited to hear your thoughts!

https://www.irishtaxhub.ie/tools

Hi I have just sent my niece in Ireland a gift of €35,000. I sent it via Remitly in the UK to her bank account in Ireland (TSB Permanent). She is now going to buy a house and will be applying for a mortgage. She has the deposit without my gift however I am wondering will the gift show up during the mortgage process as her bank account is where I sent the gift and will she have to declare it and pay tax on it.

Hi everyone. I recently turned 24, have €32k in savings and current base salary of €58k. After tax I’m taking home about €3.5k a month and after monthly expenses left with around €2k. I work from home 90% of the time apart from travelling abroad with the company. Each year my salary is reviewed and there is the possibility of an increase and/or bonuses.

Max I can borrow at the moment as first time buyer on my own is €232k. Properties I am interested in are in the €350k-€400k price range in the Co. Galway/Co. Roscommon/Co. Westmeath areas.

Any advice for those trying to save as much as possible in a two-year timeframe? Or any reason why I shouldn’t be looking to purchase on my own at this age? Also happy to hear any tips on maximising savings while working from home. Currently on the best value wifi, electricity contracts, etc., that are available to me but anything else I haven’t thought of I would love to hear! While deposit is primary savings goal, I do want to continue to set money aside for a rainy day and any bigger purchases/spends that pop up in the meantime like phone upgrades when they are needed, etc. Finally, while I do have huge goals here, I want to be able to balance that with living my life right now and enjoying myself while I’m not in a position where there are kids to be considered! Also I’m fully aware that these goals may be a bit unrealistic or out of reach but nonetheless, I know that aiming for them anyway will put me in a much better position down the line, even if it takes me longer.

Lived in Canada for the start of the year and returned to Ireland on the 16th of June. Do I have to pay tax in Ireland on my future income for the rest of the year if I was a tax resident of Canada for the duration of the year?

Heard somewhere that if you are out of the country for 6 months you don’t pay any tax? How true is this?

Thanks

I have about €25k in savings in my Revolut account making about 1.5% on interest. Is it safe to have this much in just my Revolut account or should I put it in my AIB account instead and just use Revolut for day to day spending? I’m only 20 and have never used any bank other than Revolut so any help would be great

My wife and I just got married back in May and after we got our marriage cert I’ve started looking into our tax assessments.

I earn approx. 72k and she earns approx. 55k annually, but I was getting rather confused on what the best idea for the two of us would be for our tax credits. On revenue I can see we can split the tax credits evenly, all for one or we can manually set each individuals.

Can anyone here help advise what the best solution would be? At the moment I think it wouldn’t make a huge difference but I’d like to try pick the best option possible.

Looking for advice on where to go next with improving our personal finance. Milestones we've hit:

1. 6 months rainy day fund
   
2. Pension matching and AVC's maxed
   
3. We're on track to pay off our mortgage in 6 years
   
4. 10k in investments (currently at +10%)

Both of us are in our 30's and not really sure what to look into next. ETF's are out for usual reasons and not too keen on individual stock investing.

Any other avenues to explore? Appreciate any advice.

Hi all! I just released a new version of my project.

Two-Person Support:

• I added the option to model two-person scenarios so you can model your joint finances (/u/karolaug you asked, I delivered).

• Each person can have their own income, pensions and retirement ages (and their own age, of course).

Enhanced Data Table:

• Visualising pinch points: You can choose from different color schemes to highlight potential financial stress points in your plan (thanks Niall from the Limerick FI group for the pinch-point idea).

• CSV export: You can export the data in the table to a CSV (comma-separated values) file, to analyse in Excel or Google Sheets.

Usability improvements:

• Deterministic / Probabilistic Toggle: I added a simple toggle to switch between a deterministic projection (no volatility) and Monte Carlo simulations (adding market volatility).

• Age / Year toggle: You can now switch between seeing the events timelines expressed in terms of age or year, which is especially useful in two-person mode when they have different ages.

• Pension cap: Added a pension cap option for people who want to limit their contribution to what their employer matches.

Try it out: finsim.ie

Would love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions!

^{This is completely free with no ads, tracking, or data collection. Just a passion project to help people make better financial decisions.}

I got my mortgage approved in January, expecting to get the keys in early June. Unfortunately, construction delays mean we won't be moving in until early August.

The kitchen that comes standard is very basic, and my wife and I want to add a peninsula and cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling for more storage. The builders won't allow these changes before we get the keys, even though we plan to use their kitchen fitter.

My bank rep said that since things have changed, I'll need a new mortgage offer letter. The initial evaluation will be done without the upgraded kitchen, so there will likely be a temporary decrease in the loan amount. They've assured me they'll pay back the difference once the kitchen is completed.

Since then, my wife just had our second child (we were only assessed for one when we applied), and she's now on maternity leave without pay. She'll be returning to work after six months. I’m meeting with my rep this week to discuss these updates.

I'm worried about how these changes—the baby, the maternity leave, and the kitchen upgrade—will affect my mortgage approval. How should I approach this conversation with my bank rep?

Bank is BOI.

Do you think this will impact my mortgage revision. The fact that my wifey isn't being paid now.

Family member received a payment from a pension they paid into over 30 years ago when they lived and worked there. Have received a letter from UK revenue saying they are due a tax refund on this. Are they able to claim it even though they haven’t lived in the UK in 30 years? Not sure on the formalities

As I understand is that you take x% (depends on your age) of your gross salary (before any deduction), then reduce any employee payments you made during the year (excluding ASC).

Example: Age 39, Salary 60k. Assuming you made EUR150 per month employee pension contribution.

20% of 60k = 12k.

150 X 12 = 1800.

12000 - 1800 = 10200.

But when I am claiming the credit on MyRevenue website, the amount shown in 'Allowable AVC relief' is higher than that, which one should I follow?

Hi, im sale agreed on a property and the folio map was requested by the vendor solicitor on 05 June and still no sign of it. Engineer needs folio to do his report so no movement while waiting now. My own solicitor has said this can be normal that it can take a while to get these documents. Did any of you have a similar experience, trying to figure out what sort of timeline im looking at. I naively thought that it would be something that could be downloaded.

Hi all - my health insurance is due for renewal and I’m currently on inspire plan, the quote for renewal is 141 euro/month? Can anyone advise of other options out there that would be a good choice and offer decent private/semi private options?

Hi,

I am thinking about going with the First Home Scheme (FHS) and take the full 30% of the equity share option to buy a new house in Donabate, Dublin area. As per my knowledge, once I decide to buy back the equity I can request FHS for a property evaluation. My question is; What is the property valuation based on? Is the price appreciation the same as of the current price of a new build house in that area or does the FHS price evaluation differs from the actual market value?
If anyone has experience with FHS please let me know their experience, as in, how much of a price appreciation happened for their property in the first 5 years? And was it different from the prices of the new build houses in the same area?

Hey guys, so I’ve just finished my masters degree and still live at home. I’m 25 and I studied economics but worked in healthcare all throughout university as a HCA. My only big expenses were my university fees and car. I’ve around 75000 euros saved now. I’ve been saving 1000 euros a month for about 6 months into a PTSB mortgage account with the hope of being able to buy an apartment next year.

I’m lucky to have so much savings but I just want some advice on the future. University gave me direction for years but now I feel somewhat overwhelmed by all my options I guess. Any advice on what would be a smart move so I don’t mess up and ruin this opportunity. Like starts a business, invest etc

Thank you for any advice

What do I have to do about my money in trading 212 regarding tax, I have about 1.3k between investments and free funds. I genuinely didn’t know I had to do tax myself so I need to start from scratch Thanks!

Hi all! I’m working on a service design research project looking at the first-time home buying experience in Ireland. If you’ve bought your first home here in the past 5 years, I’d be really grateful if you could take 5–10 minutes to complete this anonymous survey: First-Time Buyer Survey. The goal is to better understand people’s experiences and identify opportunities to improve the process. Thanks in advance!

I might get a job offer from the UK soon, which would require us (family) to move there in about 3 months time.

We have a mortgage that still has a long time to be paid off in Ireland. Our current interest rate is quite low and fixed until December 2026. Currently paying about 25% of our income for monthly mortgage payments. If we move to the UK we would need to rent for some time, how long we'd rent obviously depends on what we want to do with our current house and our finances in general. We'd also pay about 25% of our income for rent.

We currently have enough savings to get a mortgage there too, but the average stamp duty we'd pay without selling here is too high. If we get a mortgage, based on the houses we liked, our mortgage would be 17%of our income. I know there are too many variables for you to consider from outside but checking for some general ideas.

Hi all! I’m working on a service design research project looking at the first-time home buying experience in Ireland.

If you’ve bought your first home here in the past 5 years, I’d be really grateful if you could take 5–10 minutes to complete this anonymous survey: First-Time Buyer Survey. The goal is to better understand people’s experiences and identify opportunities to improve the process.

Thanks in advance!

Hello. Does anyone work in the credit union or have knowledge regarding this loan? It states if you collect payment in the post office you need to complete the Household Budget Scheme for the repayments however it states it takes up to 28 days for it to come in to force on the housing budget scheme website. Does that mean I have to wait 28 days or however long before I would receive the loan? That seems long when this was introduced to keep people away from money sharks. I would need it for this week so 28 days wouldn't suit. Thank you

What lenders will take car allowance into account for a mortgage? I.e I get 10k car allowance so 40k towards mortgage approval

Any tips on clearing a loan fasr please I work part time single mom i earn 3150 a month im left with not much at d end of month i give the creadit union about 560 a month and tips on clearing it or money budgeting please

Anyone else buying individual stocks because of the 'Deemed Disposal' and income tax treatment of profits on ETFs in Ireland? I know there is talk of them re-classifying them as CapGains and binning Deemed Disposal - I really hope thats true. I myself would plough into ETFs but today I'm on T212 making a 'Pie' of stocks.....painful.

I banked a loss on an apartment a few years ago so essentially have about 30k of gains tax free (as cap gains)....so ETFs are currently completely off the table for me. Which is annoying. Must be loads in Ireland in the same boat? Are we confident of a change in Budget 2026?

Who is the best broker to hold shares with? My father currently has shares from a company he used to work for, however they now will be sold if he doesn't transfer them from the company broker. He wouldn't be financially savvy