Applying
-
Fill in the Application for Subsidy Certificate
It can be completed online on the scheme’s site, and anyone who cannot use the online form can email DVA a PDF version. List every type of service from the first day in the ADF to the date of the application, breaks included, and attach the service records described below. The optional lump sum is asked for on the same form.
-
Send it with the records
By email, fax or post, with all supporting documents; the addresses are on the scheme’s application page. Under the Act, the Secretary can ask in writing for more information and refuse to consider the application until it arrives. The Act notes that the Criminal Code makes it an offence to give false or misleading information or documents.
-
Read what comes back
If you are eligible, DVA sends the certificate to you, not to the lender, with a letter giving your subsidy tier and a fact sheet on the scheme’s conditions. If you are not, the letter explains why. The scheme also sends a document called Your Obligations When Accessing DHOAS, which it asks recipients to read.
The service records to attach
Service records are required, and the scheme is blunt about why: if not all service is shown, the subsidy level and period can be reduced. It asks that PMKeyS records be up to date with Permanent and Reserve service and any warlike service, with queries resolved through the chain of command.
Every applicant
- The ADO Service Record (long version), including enlistment and separation details, posting and promotion history, non-effective service such as leave without pay, and operational service.
It comes from PMKeyS Employee Self-Service, under the My Career tile, or from unit administrative staff or the Defence Service Centre.
Current and former Reservists, as well
- The ADF Reserve Record of Service Report, also called the Statement of Reserve Service, asked for on an AE914 Reserve Service History Request form.
Defence advises that Global Payroll payslips can be used to verify paid Reserve service the statement does not show.
The scheme advises members about to leave to collect these records before separating. Someone applying as an incapacitated member also attaches the medical transition document the scheme names, usually the DM042. Contact details for the Defence Service Centre are on the scheme’s service records page.
How long a certificate lasts
The Act says a certificate comes into force on the day stated in it, and stops being in force at the earliest of four moments.
| The moment | In plain words |
|---|---|
| The subsidy becomes payable | Once it has started the subsidy on a loan, the certificate is spent. |
| The holder is no longer a member and has no service credit left | For someone who has left the ADF, a certificate lasts only while there is credit to use. |
| It is cancelled | The Secretary can cancel a certificate given because of a false or misleading statement, or one the person was not entitled to. |
| Otherwise, 12 months after it was given | The expiry date is printed on it, and the scheme says there is no discretion to extend it, in any circumstances. |
A replacement for an expired certificate means a fresh application, assessed under the law and rules in force on the day DVA receives it.
How many certificates you can have
While serving
As many as needed, one at a time, as long as eligibility and entitlement remain when each application is made. That is what allows a serving member to sell, close or change a DHOAS loan and restart the subsidy on the new one.
After separating
One. The Act gives a certificate to a former member only if they have “not previously applied for a subsidy certificate since” leaving. The scheme stresses that it is one application, not one certificate: a correctly completed application uses up the chance whatever the outcome.
A Reservist who misses a year of effective service is treated as separated, and so has one certificate left too. The Act also requires a further certificate to be given, if the applicant still has a service credit, when a subsidised loan was paid off because the house was destroyed, compulsorily acquired or sold under a court order, other than in bankruptcy or debt recovery, or, for a member who left the ADF on or after 1 July 2008 because of a compensable condition, sold or transferred where the Secretary is satisfied that was reasonably necessary because of that condition. In each case the application has to be made within 12 months after the loan was discharged. How to make the most of the last certificate is in the guide to leaving the ADF.
If the answer is no
Refusing to consider an application, refusing to give a certificate, varying one and cancelling one are all reviewable decisions under the Act. The path is set out in Part 5.
Written notice, with reasons
The Secretary must take reasonable steps to tell each affected person of the decision and of their right to have it reviewed, and the notice must include reasons.
Ask for an internal review within 28 days
On the approved form, within 28 days after being notified, or a longer period the Secretary allows. A decision made by a delegate is reviewed by the Secretary personally or by a delegate who was not involved in it.
Then the Administrative Review Tribunal
An internal review decision can be taken to the Administrative Review Tribunal.
With a certificate in hand, the next step is the loan itself, in the guide to buying with the scheme. Who qualifies in the first place is in the eligibility guide.