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

lellow_lorry

Well done to standing up......shame it came to this as on paper this is a good scheme, but as shown across many threads and not just thames valley housing, it is a complete and utter !!!! up. Problem comes when you get politicians setting a scheme with lack of foresight into the way the market works and the processes.
8 weeks and still no survey, not exactly comforting in the process of a house sale.

Sandra2

withoutatrace wrote: »

Just to say I have no idea what Thames Valley are up to now, they are still driving us insane with silly nonsense; quibbling over figures, not sending documents to our solicitor etc etc, and now today they also sent a letter out of the blue saying we have to exchange by 26 June or we will lose the funding! I have the original award letter in front of me stating we have to exchange by 15th July so surely they can't do this. Ayee isn't returning our calls or answering our emails...We have spent thousands of pounds on mortgage arrangement fees, survey, solicitors...I am so sick of all the unnecessary stress!

Oh for goodness sake! They now have the cheek to say you have to exchange by 26th June or you lose the funding?! That is totally insane. Do they actually have any money or are they just promising the same £50k to everyone and then putting unachievable deadlines in place so the money is never actually allocated?
We are having the survey and valuation done tomorrow which will be 11 weeks and 2 days since accepting the offer. am wondering how long it will then take to get to exchange - and am expecting to be told an impossible deadline too. I have no confidence in this scheme at all and nothing but sympathy for all of us caught up in it.

lellow_lorry

11 weeks? to survey, blimey more waiting for me then. guess once that is done it should be only about 4 weeks as the rest of the work should be the solicitors and not thames valleys. Frustrating for me as i had 3 offers in the first week of putting on the market and a lot of future viewings that i cancelled. I accepted a slightly lower one as first time buyers had the appeal of no chain and are generally a safe bet.....until 2 weeks in find out funding via thames valley housing.... If it goes through fine, but the wait is always for the survey as a seller, generally shows a commitment from a buyer. Basically at the moment...technically speaking I have an offer but the means of payment is not there....as a seller until thames valley finally stamp that form....is worrying to say the least.

Sandra2

lellow_lorry wrote: »

11 weeks? to survey, blimey more waiting for me then. guess once that is done it should be only about 4 weeks as the rest of the work should be the solicitors and not thames valleys. Frustrating for me as i had 3 offers in the first week of putting on the market and a lot of future viewings that i cancelled. I accepted a slightly lower one as first time buyers had the appeal of no chain and are generally a safe bet.....until 2 weeks in find out funding via thames valley housing.... If it goes through fine, but the wait is always for the survey as a seller, generally shows a commitment from a buyer. Basically at the moment...technically speaking I have an offer but the means of payment is not there....as a seller until thames valley finally stamp that form....is worrying to say the least.

Hi - Our EA advised us that until they have written confirmation to proceed from Thames Valley - which took 10 weeks to come through - they are not proceedable and we should continue to market the property. Our solicitor also advised us to do this as in his experience these schemes take a really long time and are an administrative headache. We are still marketing our property as we've had so much hassle we don't believe anything Thames Valley or our buyers tell us. Our buyers waited 6 weeks before telling us they were using MyChoice and only just got their application in before May 8th when TV stopped processing new applications. Hope you get some news soon.

lellow_lorry

Sandra, ...thanks for your comments. Have to admit I have been a little left in the dark on this, although my solicitor has said expect a slow process as his previous experience with thames valley has been slow. As for my EA not being entirely up front on the details(and they knew from day 1) I told them "are you confident this will go through? Choice now yours to market and find another buyer......or wait and if it doesn't, I withdraw from the market till September and market with another agent" They will contact me tomorrow......:rolleyes:.....guess i might get a few answers especially as its their commision on the line.

TandB

We accepted our offer at the very beginning of May. Our buyer was supposed to hear from Thames Valley 'within three weeks'. We put our place back on the market after five weeks (at this point Thames Valley were saying that she might hear within a couple of weeks). At seven weeks still nothing...

Now we've had an ultimatum from the people we are buying from that we need a buyer who can make proper progress by the end of next week - not looking very good. Quite frankly Thames Valley do not seem to have any notion of the housing market and do not seem to be able to manage what should be a relatively straightforward scheme... Basically I wouldn't hold my breath...

Sandra2

TandB wrote: »

We accepted our offer at the very beginning of May. Our buyer was supposed to hear from Thames Valley 'within three weeks'. We put our place back on the market after five weeks (at this point Thames Valley were saying that she might hear within a couple of weeks). At seven weeks still nothing...

Now we've had an ultimatum from the people we are buying from that we need a buyer who can make proper progress by the end of next week - not looking very good. Quite frankly Thames Valley do not seem to have any notion of the housing market and do not seem to be able to manage what should be a relatively straightforward scheme... Basically I wouldn't hold my breath...

Hi TandB - 7 weeks and still nothing? That may mean it's another 3/4 weeks until you hear based on our experience. Our EA has chased and chased to such an extent that the case officer (MF) has asked him not to call! He did get the job done though so it may be worth seeing if your EA can apply some pressure if you are about to lose your purchase. This scheme really makes me so upset because so many people are losing houses due to the ridiculous wait times. Someone posted that there were only 4 case workers so you can imagine how long it is taking to process everything - and goodness only knows how long it takes to get to exchange. It is then 3 weeks before you can complete so we are looking at August at the earliest we've been told. Hope you can persuade the people you are buying from to hang on for you - ours have said this week that if there is no definite exchange date by Tuesday then they will consider their options........ aarrggghhhh!

withoutatrace

Sandra2, I really hope the exchange date gets sorted in time...We finally seem to have sorted everything out with Thames Valley, but now the solicitors are taking forever and are terrible communicators.We are going all out to exchange by 3rd July, so we can complete on sellers preferred date 3 weeks later. Every day we are either sending things recorded delivery, making phone calls, sending emails...and at the back of my mind I am constantly wondering if it will all fall apart before we complete...

TandB

Famous last words - yesterday we recieved word that our buyer has had her funding confirmed. And we had a second good offer on the flat (this time a short chain with the people who want our flat selling their flat to a first time buyer).

In principle we want to sell to our TVHB buyer - we're just nervous that if there are any more delays or TV mess us around that we could lose the house we are buying. Our vendor and their agent seem to have low confidence in the scheme ("we don't know of anyone who has completed on the scheme yet"). And this move is really important to us as my wife is at near burn-out from her 70 miles a day round commute along the motorway...

The real questions are:

1) Does an email from TV mean that our buyer is definitely going ahead into the final stage (or should we wait for the letter)?

2) Will the TV factor in this final stage run ahead sufficiently quickly/ smoothly to keep our vendor happy (how long should it take and will TV be reasonable in dealing with our buyer)?

bargain-hunter-uk_2

TandB wrote: »

Famous last words - yesterday we recieved word that our buyer has had her funding confirmed. And we had a second good offer on the flat (this time a short chain with the people who want our flat selling their flat to a first time buyer).

In principle we want to sell to our TVHB buyer - we're just nervous that if there are any more delays or TV mess us around that we could lose the house we are buying. Our vendor and their agent seem to have low confidence in the scheme ("we don't know of anyone who has completed on the scheme yet"). And this move is really important to us as my wife is at near burn-out from her 70 miles a day round commute along the motorway...

The real questions are:

1) Does an email from TV mean that our buyer is definitely going ahead into the final stage (or should we wait for the letter)?

2) Will the TV factor in this final stage run ahead sufficiently quickly/ smoothly to keep our vendor happy (how long should it take and will TV be reasonable in dealing with our buyer)?

1. probably ok, but always good to wait for the letter.
2. once approved, they expect the whole process to be completed within 6 weeks, so things will move fast.

i'd stick with it, it's certain money, but just delayed to hell, but the worst bit os over, and it should be easier now