Help to buy, ground rent, mortgage confusion bleugh

Hairy_McClary

Hi

If anyone can give me any advice it would be greatly appreciated.
My husband and I bought our first home together for £200 000 nearly three years ago using the help to buy shared equity loan scheme. We were taken in my a shiny new build with new fitted kitchen etc etc and I'm ashamed to admit neither of us fully understood what it was we were signing up for. Can anyone explain to me what happens after 5 years, do we start accruing interest what kind of monthly repayments do we make
We remortgaged about 8months ago on a 5 year fixed rate deal but now friends of ours have said we should have put the equity loan on the mortgage. Is that possible and worth doing?
Our little family has recently grown and I expect that in about another 3 years we will want to move again ( when we have paid off debts and are thinking about schools etc) as new builds aren't really retaining their value in his area is it something we should sort now or leave?

Also a separate but just as confusing issue, we bought the house as leasehold and pay about £200 a year ground rent, the developers have recently sold the lease on to another company who are telling us that it was in our contract that they can double our ground rent basically when they feel like. I have enquired about purchasing the lease and have got nowhere. Others on the estate have been quoted anything between £5000 and £20000 and there have been some house sales now that have fallen through because of this issue
If I can get a figure is it something that's worth buying...if it's even a figure we can afford?? Is it something we can put on our mortgage??

I'm just stressing about everything and so confused
Thank you:(

kingstreet

The fees payable in year six and beyond start at 1.75% of the loan amount.

They increase each year and if, for example, inflation runs at 5%pa, in year seven the rate will be 1.87% and in year eight 2.0% and so on.

Presumably, you didn't remortgage you took a customer retention product from your existing lender and this rate will now go past the start of the HTB fees. As the rate on this is lower than a typical mortgage, you may not have wished to repay the loan much before year seven or eight anyway, but you need to have an eye on the increases in the value of the property because a 20% loan to purchase means 20% of the property value to repay when you get round to it.

Here's a link to the website of the post-sales HTB Agent;-

http://www.myfirsthome.org.uk/

and I suggest you get professional advice from a specialist newbuild broker when you start to look seriously at your options.

MyOnlyPost

For me the ground rent issue is much bigger. What the builders have done is quite common and the people who bought the freehold have done it with only one intention, profit.

You say they can double the ground rent whenever they want? Is that the actual term in the contract if so that would be an unfair clause as what's to stop them doubling everyday? It's more likely that they double it periodically but I for one would not buy the house off you with that looming. Even if they only double it every 5 years in 20 years time it would be £3,200

steampowered

I think you need to post the exact wording of the clause in your lease which refers to ground rent if you want to get an opinion on it.

If they are really claiming £5k/£20k a year, I think you need to get advice from a solicitor.