Following a review by Government ministers, rumours are rife as to whether the Help to Buy Scheme is to be scrapped.
Speculation has grown on whether or not it will be axed as recent research indicates that the scheme, which was implemented to support first-time buyers, is increasing house prices and only helping rich people to climb the property ladder.
The Telegraph has reported that the scheme could be replaced with another system which is directly aimed at less well-off families.
According to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, more than 420,000 people have now used the Help to Buy schemes to get on the housing ladder – which was launched in 2013.
Amazingly, over 1.2m first time buyers have opened Help to Buy ISA accounts, which offer top-up funds of up to £3,000 on top of the buyers’ savings.
Thanks to the Help to Buy scheme, more than 420,000 completions have taken place using one or more of the schemes and more than 365,000 first time buyer households are now on the property ladder.
However, research carried out by Hamptons International claims that a fifth of households have used the scheme to upgrade their homes and that it has also been used by a substantial proportion of affluent households.
John Healey, Labour’s shadow housing minister said that the scheme should be targeted towards buyers with ‘ordinary’ incomes.
“There are long-run flaws in the Help to Buy scheme which Ministers have failed to fix,” he said.
“As it stands, the scheme is poorly targeted and poor value for taxpayers’ money. Help to Buy should be overhauled and tightly targeted on first-time buyers with ordinary incomes, as Labour has long-argued.”
The Government has already pledged £8.9 billion to the scheme with a further £10 billion pledged in 2017 – although current funding for Help to Buy is due to run out in 2021.
Do you think the Government’s Help to Buy Scheme is flawed? Or does the help to first-time buyers outweigh the long-term proposed scheme failings?
