Your home Shared Ownership

Listlad

We have recently entered into shared ownership with Heylo and Guinness. We would have been stumped otherwise. But there are one or two noteworthy negatives.

1] They have proven to be hard to get hold of or slow to respond on many occasions. Getting hold of the right person, that is.

2] There is no evidence of buildings insurance other than that they say the building is insured.

Listlad

Listlad

Mellymoon wrote: »

Thank you for everyone who has taken the time to reply.

Unfortunately my earnings currently do not allow me to borrow anywhere near the amount of money I require to buy a house outright, obviously this would by far be my preference.

For those looking into Heylo this is my progress, well activity so far, sadly today my optimism about finding the answers i need has failed me.

I have:

Contacted the sharetobuy website (which may not be government based is linked to the Mayors office/London Assembly) who sent me the initial email with Heylo's details - they replied that as Heylo is a private company they are not part of the affordable housing scheme and i would need a solicitor to look into the details.

I then got some advice from a Solicitor who with the limited details I provided was very concerned about the scheme. She also included a link to the Home Owners Alliance which lists a number of things to watch out for in any shared ownership situation, including with Housing Associations. It concerns me that there seems to be a real lack of regulation in this area.

I then contacted Helptobuyse website who sent me in the direction of sharetobuy and are mentioned on Heylo's Facebook page. They replied saying no one there knew anything about this scheme there. They suggested I contact heylo so I assume they didnt really take on board what my email was asking.

I have also taken further steps and made more contacts which I will detail another day.

In the meantime I did get hold of a template lease from Heylo and was willing to pay to get this looked over as it boggled my brain, I just need this resolved in my mind, if its not a real opportunity to get on the housing ladder so be it, and two solicitors have declined, so I continue.

I did speak to my local Housing Association to see who they were regulated by as Heylo said they were regulated by the same people as Housing associations. I was told it was the Housing Ombudsman so I phoned them. As I had suspected they are mainly there to deal with disputes and not give advice but she did confirm that Heylo was not registered with them - another dead end.

Tonight I have emailed the Leasehold Advisory centre which I found on the HMRC website to see how they can help me in checking the lease. I will update on that when I can.

Anyone with any further information or contacts that may be able to help with this would be appreciated.

I would still be thrilled to find out, and have in writing evidence that the lease is a protected one and whatever happened to Heylo my investment would be protected. Like for most people having a home even almost of my own is a real dream.

I am tempted to try my local MP next week as websites with any link to government should not advertise products they know nothing about, many people would not take the time to verify the nature of Heylo and could sign up and invest on the assumption it is government backed.

To be continued ...

How did you get on?

00ec25

Listlad wrote: »

How did you get on?

as said above by another poster, Mellymoon has never been back here so you will never know how they got on .