Calls are being made to the government imploring them to extend the Help to Buy Scheme as it’s feared many first-time buyers (FTBs) will miss out, as their dream homes haven’t been built due to the pandemic.
Kush Rawl, Director of Residential Investment at Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing has written to the Housing Minister Chris Pincher about the subject, highlighting that the current Help to Buy completion deadline of 28 February isn’t feasibble.
He said:
“A number of our customers are set to lose out on their dream homes, solely due to unavoidable delays to construction as a direct consequence of the pandemic. And they are not alone.
“Across England, a large number of buyers are facing a similarly desperate situation whereby their dream of homeownership will be lost if the government does not extend the current Help to Buy completion date of 28 February 2021 for new build homes.
“We are therefore asking the government to show flexibility, as it has done throughout the pandemic, and provide an extension to the existing Help to Buy scheme to guarantee that transactions on new build properties that have progressed to the point of completion will go ahead as planned.
“If this technical change is not made, first-time buyers across the country may see their purchases collapse, incur additional costs or even abandon purchases, which would be bad news for them, housing providers and the wider market. There’s still time to act, so we need to look forward to working with the government to resolve this issue.”
The BBC ran Greg Saunders and David Leith’s story of how they’ve spent the best part of 10 years saving for their first home, but Covid-19 is destroying their homeownership dreams. With the delays to building works being a hard hitting reality for the couple.
Greg revealed:
“We can’t buy the house without the scheme as it’s unaffordable without it.
“If the government does not safeguard people like us, we are going to lose about £2,000 in solicitor and mortgage broker fees.”
A spokesman for the Ministry for Housing said that construction could continue during the current lockdown, but it was aware of the problems.
“We recognise there have been delays caused by the pandemic. That’s why we extended the Help to Buy build deadline by two months to 28 February and provided extra flexibility on the purchase deadline until 31 May 2021 to protect existing reservations made before 30 June 2020,” he said.
“We are aware of the concerns raised and are continuing to monitor the situation.”
3 responses
We must complete by 31st March otherwise we miss out on the help to buy scheme, therefore loosing our house.
You can no longer apply for the help to buy scheme so I don’t understand why the government can’t allow all accepted applications to go through, in their own time? This would allow for construction delays and solicitor delays without costing the government any further money and reducing the stress and workload of both homebuyers, construction sites and solicitor firms.
Putting a deadline on completion is completely unrealistic given the unpredictability of buying and selling.
This seems like an incredibly simple decision for me.
I am not a 1st time buyer, but I solid my house and was just about to exchange contracts when I was informed by my financial advisor that he had not submitted my help to buy application and the deadline date of 16th December 2020 had been missed. Through no fault of my own, with an approved mortgage and buyers ready to move into my current home it has all fallen through. I am obviously out of pocket considerably and this was my last opportunity to move up the property ladder on my own accord. To say I am devastated is an under statement. Housing for England have refused to allow the application as their systems have been shutdown despite being able to prove that my application should have been made at the end of October.
I am not a 1st time buyer, but I solid my house and was just about to exchange contracts when I was informed by my financial advisor that he had not submitted my help to buy application and the deadline date of 16th December 2020 had been missed. Through no fault of my own, with an approved mortgage and buyers ready to move into my current home it has all fallen through. I am obviously out of pocket considerably and this was my last opportunity to move up the property ladder on my own accord. To say I am devastated is an under statement. Housing for England have refused to allow the application as their systems have been shutdown despite being able to prove that my application should have been made at the end of October.