How the preferential mortgage for IDPs will work: what is provided, who is affected, what are the restrictions
14 August 17:16
Starting from September 10, 2025, the Ukrainian government is going to launch a new mortgage assistance program for internally displaced persons and people living in the frontline areas. That is, those who have the money and the ability to take out a mortgage loan for housing will be able to count on benefits. Komersant analyzed what IDPs can expect.
State aid for preferential mortgage loans for IDPs and people from the frontline areas is provided in the form of
- compensation of up to 70% of the down payment (but not more than 30% of the loan amount),
- compensation of up to 70% of the monthly payment during the first year,
- up to UAH 1,000 to reimburse related expenses, such as commissions, fees, and insurance premiums.
Those who are eligible for assistance: IDPs included in the database or persons from the territories included in the List of hostilities or occupation who do not own housing (except for housing located in the occupied or active combat areas).
Assistance can also be provided to a family member of the first degree of kinship if the housing is mortgaged in favor of the recipient.
Assistance is provided through authorized banks, unless other state housing benefits have been previously received. The application is submitted in a free form and contains basic personal data, confirmation of IDP status, lack of housing, previous assistance, and contact information.
If possible, the application can be submitted electronically through the Diia application with the signature of the QEP. The Diia portal automatically checks the data in the registers. If confirmed, the information is transferred to the authorized bank.
At the same time, there are certain restrictions on the housing that IDPs can purchase, in particular, its cost should not exceed UAH 2 million.
The age of the property will also be taken into account. Thus, IDPs will be able to purchase housing
- in Kyiv and regional centers – not older than 10 years;
- in other settlements – not older than 20 years.
The rules of the eOselya program apply to residents of the frontline areas, and they will be able to purchase housing up to 10 years old.
When applying for a mortgage, IDP recipients lose their right to housing allowance and rental subsidies.
The National Social Service controls the payments. The recipient addresses the Pension Fund authorities with all questions. Decisions can be appealed administratively or in court. Data verification is based on the recommendations of the Ministry of Finance. Overpaid funds are returned by the recipient to the PFU account and can be used for other recipients.
In case of violation of the contract or refusal to return the funds, the recovery is carried out in court. The guilty officials will be held liable in accordance with the law.
“The implementation of the act will allow to introduce an effective and transparent mechanism for providing state aid to internally displaced persons and persons living in the frontline territories to pay part of the down payment and monthly payments on a preferential mortgage loan to provide them with housing,” the Ministry of Social Policy emphasizes.
IDPs from TOT without the right to compensation
IDPs from the occupied territories can only dream of free housing or housing certificates under the eOselya program for lost square meters. The law entitling IDPs from Luhansk, Donetsk, the occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to receive a housing certificate to purchase new housing to replace the one they have left in the TOT has not yet been adopted. At best, they have to settle for a place in a mobile home park or a former children’s camp.
Certificates for housing destroyed as a result of hostilities are issued only to IDPs from Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. More precisely, from the de-occupied territory or the territory that is constantly under fire.
According to the lawyers, there is currently no procedure for obtaining a housing certificate for persons whose property was destroyed before February 24, 2022, or is currently under occupation, and there is no possibility to provide information about the nature of the damage to such property.
“But even if it is possible to send a photo video of the destroyed property, nothing will happen without the opinion of experts who must inspect everything themselves. In addition, you still need to have all the documents for housing. That’s why IDPs from the occupied territories are denied certificates – no one has thought through a mechanism for issuing a certificate for destroyed housing somewhere in Luhansk or Donetsk regions, based on what criteria. This creates a selective approach to compensation for destroyed or damaged housing and in some way violates the constitutional provisions on equality of citizens,” lawyer Valentyn Serkov said in a comment to Kommersant Ukrainsky.
Seized housing for IDPs
However, officials offer ways out of the situation. For example, at the end of May 2025, at the international forum IV Legal Forum EU-Eastern Partnership 2025, the head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA), Olena Duma, spoke about a new social project to transfer seized apartments to internally displaced persons. She said that the Kyiv City Military Administration, together with the ARMA, is preparing a project to temporarily move IDPs and citizens who have lost their homes due to the war into seized apartments.
“The Kyiv project will be a pilot project and, if successful, will be scaled up to other regions of the country. KMVA will work together with ARMA to ensure that the project is as effective as possible and solves the problem of housing for those who need it most and cannot wait,” wrote KMVA Head Timur Tkachenko on Telegram.
According to the ARMA, a tender will be held, and the newly elected manager of the seized housing will, under the terms of the contract, transfer apartments not only to IDPs and people who lost their homes as a result of the war, but also to the families of Ukrainian defenders.
But the fact is that there is not much seized housing in the capital – more than 100 apartments. Over the past year, ARMA identified 12,352 properties (6,372 residential and 5,980 non-residential), of which 1,512 were seized (12.2% of those identified) and 289 were transferred to management (19.1% of those seized and only 2.3% of those identified). At this rate, IDPs will have to wait a long time for what they were promised.
Those IDPs who have money will be able to buy housing. Those who do not will remain without a fixed place of residence. And there are more than one million of them.
The author: Alla Dunina
