My Experience - Thames Valley Housing Association - My Choice Homebuy Scheme

withoutatrace

I actually feel a bit bad for complaining now, as the case worker has gone out of her way to send documents and work wth the solicitors today...The other half has been constantly chasing people though- maybe they are sick of him! We have found a good tactic is to cc Thames Valley and the solicitors into each email sent...

I wont believe it until I see it, but by sending some documents by next day delivery there is actually a good chance that we can exchange contracts on Friday!

withoutatrace

We now have a problem where the sellers solicitors wont accept a nil balance on exchange of contracts. If we pay a nominal amount then all the figures will have to be reassessed and we have to start all over again...The caseworker is not available but someone else at Thames Valley said something about 'simultaneous exchange and completion.' Does anyone know anything about this?

lellow_lorry

A simultaneous exchange and completion is basically both on same day.....something most solicitors don't like as the pressure of doing both and sorting out the finances is a pain.(and leaves the whole chain waiting holding their breath, also if it fails removals is costly) Anyway is that possible with TV as I have been informed there must be a minimum of 10 days between exchange and completion by my buyers solicitor.

Sandra2

We've been told it's a minimum of 3 weeks between exchange and completion with TV and that simultaneous is impossible as they have to clear the funds. I take it nil balance on exchange means that you don't have any money to put down as the deposit? I realised that if you had a deposit you wouldn't be needing to use TV but I was assuming that even with using TV you still had to put something down to show you are serious about purchasing. Our solicitor said 10% is usual but 5% can be agreed between people and then passed up the chain so I hadn't thought that you could exchange and not pay anything. Could make things interesting if our buyers don't have a deposit as the people we are buying from need our deposit to put down against their purchase. Still, TV should get all the documents tomorrow so we shall see what they say about the survey/valuation results and if we get an idea of an exchange date too. Hope everyone is hanging on in there!!

flower_fairy_2

Hi All,

I have had a very interesting read through all your comments and only wish that I had seen this sooner there has been so many problems! I am also on the my choice homebuy scheme with TVHA. I have my offer accepted at the end of april, and only heard last week after many phonecalls and emails that I was able to proceed, luckily the vendor of the property was very patient. I have booked the survey which is today, sorted my mortgage and been to my solicitor, i was advised it wasnt realistic to exchange by 30 July as i was told i have to as this is only 5 weeks away! I contacted TVHA and was advised that if a small extension is required that will not be a problem although my solicitors are trying to get an exact date to extend to. I was very relieved to hear this as I have already paid out about £1000 for surveys and mortgage fee's so decided to continue with the purchase. Now I seem to have the opposite problem, the vendors solicitor has not sent any paperwork which means mine cant do their job!

Cant anyone advise me with regards to the survey they say your allowed a maximum of 3000k worth of repairs to the property, how do they determine this, would a quote be needed from a business? or do they assume you are doing it yourself so obviously the cost of repair would be less? The property I am buying is not in bad condition its just unfortunate the last owners did not look after it too well and there are a few cosmetics to be sorted.

If anyone has any experience with this any advice would be great!

withoutatrace

The survey will mention if any work needs doing; they rate everything, and anything requiring attention should be highlighted. We asked our estate agent to get quotes, although they weren't actually needed. It is a bit of a gamble as you pay for the survey not knowing what it will find, but if the work needed is purely cosmetic then there shouldn't be a problem.

Our difficulties continue, as it is expected that the solicitors fees are used as a deposit between exchange and completion...but our solicitors wont do that. We would happily advance them some money, but as the whole amount is shown in the paperwork as a loan and a mortgage- remember the IFA and Thames Valley decided what we can afford to pay- it is impossible to sort out legally.

As it stands our solicitor is getting back to the seller's solicitor to enquire as to whether there is any chance they will reconsider. (We think that they wont) Otherwise, Thames Valley told us that they CAN do a simultaneous exchange and complete, but they need ten days notice. Obviously that is also subject to the seller's solicitor agreeing.

The last resort would be to redo all the financial paperwork and assessments again, but I imagine that we would have to pay all the costs again and there would be long delays...At the minute I am not happy with the solicitors; they have had all the paperwork for a long time, surely they should have anticipated problems...?

ChelseaDPM

Hi guys,

Good to hear that peoples applications are being processed.

We have now had our letter, and went to see our financial adviser to arrange the mortgage. After being accepted, we paid the arrangement fees, and also a fee for the homebuyer's survey.

Excuse my ignorance but what it now the next step for those who have got this far? Do i await paperwork through from the mortgage lender (ours is RBS), and how does the survey get arranged? Surely the mortgage lender will contact the EA to arrange access etc.

Is there anything else i need to do?

Sandra2

ChelseaDPM wrote: »

Hi guys,

Good to hear that peoples applications are being processed.

We have now had our letter, and went to see our financial adviser to arrange the mortgage. After being accepted, we paid the arrangement fees, and also a fee for the homebuyer's survey.

Excuse my ignorance but what it now the next step for those who have got this far? Do i await paperwork through from the mortgage lender (ours is RBS), and how does the survey get arranged? Surely the mortgage lender will contact the EA to arrange access etc.

Is there anything else i need to do?

Once you've paid your survey fee get the EA to chase the RBS to book the survey in as soon as possible. We had our booked within the week for the following week. Once the survey and valuation are back you need to send a copy of them and your mortgage offer to TVH who will then decide if they will allow you to proceed to exchange. That is the stage we are at now - waiting for the case officer to process this next bit so we can then set an exchange date. Inching closer........

flower_fairy_2

Thank for your help without a trace, I cant believe you are still having so many problems, i thought now that the go ahead has been given that this would be the easy bit, seems like I still have a bit of a roller coaster ride ahead of me!

ChelseaDPM, I am at a similar stage to you, I have just paid for my survey and mortgage fee. My lender (halifax) arrange the survey and contacted me to ask if i had any questions before it was carried out, I then believe its just waiting for the paper work and mortgage offer to come through. I have on top of this been in touch with my solicitors for them to start their own searches etc as I was advised if I wait for the mortgage offer to come through before instructing them the whole process would take too long.

I hope this helps.

withoutatrace

I am pretty sure it is all going to fall through now; the seller's solicitors wanted £15,000 for the deposit (10%)- if we had that sort of money we obviously would need to use the Homebuy scheme! So all we can do now is wait and see what happens, but it looks very bad for all concerned right now...

I would advise everyone using the scheme to make sure the solicitors representing both sides are aware of the technicalities of the scheme before paying out mortgage arrangeent fees etc- we stand to lose a lot of money