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First furlough scheme payments to arrive by next week

Chancellor Rishi Sunak revealed last night that 140,000 firms have applied to receive funds from the furlough scheme.

Nigel Lewis

Chancellor Rishi Sunak last night revealed that 140,000 companies have applied for furlough grants since the system opened for applications at 8am yesterday morning, including many of the UK’s 15,000 estate agency firms.

He also revealed that companies applying for the funding should receive payment within six working days.

Although thousands of estate agency staff have been said to be ‘furloughed’ it is their employers who have been funding their enforced inactivity and it is only now that companies can apply for the grants to fund this via the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

The system is expected to pay the monthly wages of over a  million staff once the grants begin to be paid out. Furloughed staff are paid 80% of their monthly salary up to £2,500.

“These are a million people who, if they hadn’t been furloughed, would have been at risk of losing their job,” said Chancellor Rishi Sunak during last night’s Coronavirus press conference.

But estate agency owners and directors will have to be quick off the mark. To receive the funds in time for the next payday on 30th April, applications to the furlough scheme must be submitted by tomorrow.

The start of furlough scheme can’t come quick enough for many estate agencies.

Just before Sunak’s announcement Adam Marshall, director general at the British Chamber of Commerce told Sky News that its research revealed 60% of UK companies have just three months’ cash reserves to keep going during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Find out if your company can claim its wage costs through the furlough scheme.

April 21, 2020

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