First Time Buyer Scheme (FTBI) - Stuck - Unable to sell or rent!

myredhotcar

I purchased a property on the FTBI - First Time Buyer Scheme - around 3 years ago. I lived there happily for 2 years and at the start of 2010 got a job offer in London. After moving I assumed it would be easy to sell the flat but after a year there have been 0 offers.

It seems I am stuck with the flat unable to sell. This means I am currently paying a mortgage, FTBI fees and council tax for a property I'm not using. Ontop of this I'm paying rent in London which all adds up to a large amount of wasted money!

The FTBI will not allow me to rent out the property as part of their rules. They seem to offer little advice or solution to what is a very stick situation.

Can anyone offer any solutions or advice? I've already extended my mortgage term to lower the payments - but this is obviously not a preferred long term solution.

I currently can't live in the property, can't rent it out and can't sell it. Seems like I'll be stuck like this forever.

Appreciate your thoughts - already tried researching on here but not found anything like this!

sturgeon

Is the home being sold on the open market as the full share? As far as I understand, unlike other shared ownership schemes, you can sell a FTBI home as 100%...i.e. the buyer isn't buying the % you own and therefore it's irrelevant that it's an FTBI home in this sale?

LandyAndy

Give up the job in London and move back?

themull1

Why don't you move back? at least until the flat sells.

poppysarah

FTBI? What's that?

ray123

It may be possible to obtain a discount on council tax if the property is unoccupied.

myredhotcar

sturgeon - Yes I can sell the whole property - it's currently a steal - but no one seems to want to buy! I've had one offer over the past 9 months - which turned out to be a waste of time. I guess in relation to selling it is indeed irrelevant but as for my options if I can't sell - it's very restrictive. My ideal situation would be being able to rent out the property - but this is not allowed on the scheme - as it is a scheme to assist first time buyers.

ray123 - I've tried this too - the council will offer 6 months exemption - but after the 6 months you have to start paying again - I'm in the process of figuring out if I can say I'm occupying for 1 month then saying it's unoccupied - start the cycle again.

LandyAndy / themull1- this is the job I've been working towards for the past 2 years - and has a lot more scope for climbing the career ladder than in Stoke on Trent!

poppysarah - FTBI is the name of the First Time Buyer Scheme - there's actually a number of variations on the scheme which have different implications. The scheme I am on is essentially an equity loan. I've borrowed a percentage of equity in a property.

I'm wondering if anyone has had a similar situation - when I spoke to the FTBI people the only advice they offered was to switch my mortgage to interest only - not an great answer!

Plans_all_plans

I think FTBI stands for First Time Buyer Initiative? Or maybe Incentive?

How much is your flat on for? How does it compare to others selling locally? What are the most recent 'sold' prices like in the block/area? Have you got a rightmove link?

Henry_P_Chester

Is obviously too expensive. Why not just drop the price? It's coding you a fortune as it is by the sounds of it.

tootsmyboots

myredhotcar wrote: »

ray123 - I've tried this too - the council will offer 6 months exemption - but after the 6 months you have to start paying again - I'm in the process of figuring out if I can say I'm occupying for 1 month then saying it's unoccupied - start the cycle again.

We bought a property last year that we would not be living in straight away. On speaking to the council we found out that the rule for exemption is that it can be applied to a property for 6 months as a single period and only ONE time in the property's lifetime. So they had to check out house had never been exempt before under a previous owner. Luckily for us it hadn't. So unless the rules have changed then that plan wont work.

Hope you get some good advice on how to sell it

myredhotcar

Plans_all_plans wrote: »

I think FTBI stands for First Time Buyer Initiative? Or maybe Incentive?

How much is your flat on for? How does it compare to others selling locally? What are the most recent 'sold' prices like in the block/area? Have you got a rightmove link?

The property is on the market for £60k - originally bought for £99k. This is a big drop in the value of the property. Other properties are going for the same price. As I mentioned earlier the FTBI loan is an equity loan - this means that if the value of the property drops then so does the value of the loan.

My current situation means that if I sell the property for £60k I can cover my mortgage and the remainder will go to the FTBI - with the rest of the loan written off by FTBI (as the property is in negative equity).

Is obviously too expensive. Why not just drop the price? It's coding you a fortune as it is by the sounds of it.

No offence - but you can't just assume that something is too expensive without actually knowing the facts. I've lowered the asking prices as much as possible. Everytime I do this I have to pay £100 for an independant survey to send to the FTBI.

As I am not allowed to post links yet please see below:
rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-25726147.html