Phew! You've got the mortgage, the new home and you've moved house without teetering towards divorce. Before you settle into your new life however, there may be a few financial loose ends that need to be tied up, writes Una McCaffrey

The good news is that sorting out a property-related money issue could lead to an improvement in your bank balance rather than a decline. That's if you fill in the dull but necessary forms for your mortgage interest relief.

Seeing mortgage, interest and relief in the same sentence may not be inspiring, but that should not detract from the importance of the issue.

On a mortgage of €100,000, a married couple can pay €51 less each month on their mortgage repayment if interest relief has been properly worked out. If the mortgage was €200,000, the interest saving climbs to €84.67. It might not seem like a lot, but over a year it translates into a saving of around €1,000.

The beauty of mortgage interest relief is that it is due to us by law, so don't hesitate about claiming it. Better still, it should be delivered "at source", meaning that it's deducted from your monthly repayment before it is taken out of your bank account.

This makes claiming it more straightforward than under an earlier system of showing the relief as an allowance on the tax certificates of PAYE workers.

Mr Tice O'Sullivan of financial advisory firm, Primafinance, says most of his mortgage clients already know something about interest relief before he raises the issue. "For those that don't, I explain that it is a credit paid at source for interest on a home loan," Mr O'Sullivan says.

Under Revenue rules, interest relief is only available on mortgages that relate to a person's "sole or main residence". This can be located in the Republic or the UK and does not have to be owned by the individual claiming the relief as long as they spend most of their time there.

The maximum amount that can be claimed in interest relief depends on the individual. A single person who has taken out a mortgage for the first time is allowed relief of €4,000 in any given year. The net worth of this after tax will be €800. This rises to €1,600 for a first-time buyer couple. For a couple on their second mortgage, it drops to €1,016 in a year.

For claiming relief, Mr O'Sullivan says that some lenders automatically send their clients the relief form that the Revenue needs. "Other banks will not do this and we usually tell our clients to request this from the Revenue if they are unsure," he says.

The area can be quite complicated, says Mr O'Sullivan, as it can take a few months for the lender to receive approval for the tax relief from the Revenue and the varying limits involved.

He points out, however, that it is worth it for all borrowers to get on top of the subject.

For example, the fact that relief is given on a tax year basis means that mortgage-holders are entitled to a full year's credit even if the mortgage is drawn down late in the year. This would mean, Mr O'Sullivan says, that a couple who are first-time buyers would be entitled to €1,600 relief each year for the first five years, after which point they will get relief according to the lower threshold.

"They may be better off waiting until early in the second year to claim the relief as they would lose most of the first year's benefit because the relief would be limited to actual interest paid," he says.