Oh Kela....

I got a letter (of course in Finnish) that was 2-3 pages long and had lots of figures (�) and our family members names (except the dogs of course) listed on it.

I had no idea what we did wrong - but they included a form for me to fill out, which looked pretty serious and formal, and a postage-paid envelope too.

I brought this letter over to a friend's home who translated what happened.

In Finland, you can apply through Kela for a wide variety of allowances (or benefits).  Things like:

• Rental Housing Allowance - if you have little combined-income and too high of rent - you can apply to have some money credited to your bank account to help you out with your rent.
• Stay at Home Allowance - if your child(ren) are not going to a day care or are too young for public school and are staying at home with you - you can get compensated handsomely for this.  (As opposed to only 100$/month in Canada and day care is well over 200$ a week! - for example).
• Maternity/Paternity Allowance - if one parent is staying home after the delivery of a child - you can apply that one parent gets some financial compensation for staying at home etc.

The other allowances - you can find on Kela's website.  

Everything regarding social services - goes through Kela.  The application forms are available in English - but the response will always be in either Finnish or Swedish.

Anyways, the letter was in reference to our application for Rental Housing Allowance.  My husband was the sole money-maker and we were approved a year ago for some money to be deposited to our bank account to assist with the rent.
Every year this is under review and if there are any changes - like change in rent or water fees - or change in family members for example, you must notify Kela.

We were under review because our year had come up and they wanted to see if anything changed.  Yes, our rent went up and the water fees per person also went up quite a bit.
But that's not what this letter in particular was about.

Kela was requesting we return the money from as far back as January 2011 because our income has increased and they feel that the combined income is more than enough to cover rent and necessities.  Fair enough - except - it wasn't our fault our income wasn't increased ages ago.
What increase in income?

Remember we had a dispute with Kela back in June?  Well, they approved V�in�'s stay-at-home allowance because we now qualified for it as we're listed as "A-Permanent Status".
That money we got from January to June (when I submitted the claim again) is considered income on my part and combined with Tim's regular income - is more than enough that we no longer require the Rental Housing Allowance.
Fair enough - however, it was not our fault that we didn't get the At home allowance ages ago - because Kela was not notified of our change in status - so really, we are still out 6 months of Stay at home allowance (effective August 13, 2010 we got the A-Permanent Status) but Kela will only retro-pay you for 6 months.  (Which is still better than nothing! I'm not complaining!)

So this decision is not concrete -but they have cancelled rental allowance to the bank account and would like me to explain myself via that form.

So Kela - I will explain it all and I'm sure I'll get a response in Finnish.