Covid-19 November Update

On Saturday 31^st October, the Prime Minister announced another nationwide lockdown to decrease the spread of Covid-19. As per the previous lockdown, all leisure and tourism businesses and non-essential retailers must shut their doors as of 00:01 on Thursday 5^th November.

With lockdown being a further blow to businesses across the country, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) has been extended until the 31 March 2021. As part of the revised scheme, anyone who was made redundant after 23 September 2020 can be rehired and put back on furlough.

The job retention scheme (CJRS) will operate as the previous scheme did, with businesses being paid upfront to cover wages costs.

The CJRS extension means the level of the grant will mirror levels available under the CJRS in August, so the government will pay 80% of wages up to a cap of £2,500 and employers will pay employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and pension contributions for the hours the employee does not work.

As under the current CJRS, flexible furloughing will be allowed in addition to full-time furloughing.

Further details, including how to claim this extended support through an updated claims service, will be provided shortly.

The Job Support Scheme will be introduced following the end of the CJRS. To find out if you’re eligible, please click here.

Additionally, businesses required to close in England due to local or national restrictions will be eligible for the following:

• For properties with a rateable value of £15k or under, grants to be £1,334 per month, or £667 per two weeks;
• For properties with a rateable value of between £15k-£51k grants to be £2,000 per month, or £1,000 per two weeks;
• For properties with a rateable value of £51k or over grants to be £3,000 per month, or £1,500 per two weeks.

The furlough scheme protected over nine million jobs across the UK, and self-employed individuals have received over £13 billion in support. This is in addition to billions of pounds in tax deferrals and grants for businesses.

More details of how to apply will be available shortly.

Mortgage borrowers who have been impacted by coronavirus and have not yet had a mortgage payment holiday will be entitled to a six-month holiday, and those that have already started a mortgage payment holiday will be able to top up to six months without this being recorded on their credit file. Please get in touch with your mortgage lender to arrange this.

Please contact your usual Monahans representative to discuss this further. We are here to help and more details will follow as further announcements are expected from the Government and HM Treasury