Target HCA Help to Buy Loan!?!

Lozzylolz

Adrian12345 said:

Hi,

Thought I'd throw another Target HCA scenario into the mix - my one having a Covid19 twist.

I am currently in the middle of remortgaging my first charge mortgage, to do this when using HTB you have to get a deed of postponement signed off by Target HCA. This is to postpone the second HTB charge whilst the first charge is swapped between lenders. You have to pay both Target HCA and your conveyance an additional fee for this.
As per the earlier posts, Target are inexcusably slow at doing this but I had planned in the 4-6 weeks they stated it would take - so fine I thought.

Until today where my conveyance got a message to say that Target have suspended processing any work on postponing charges due to Covid19. I phoned them to find out what was going on and it turns out the legal firm that Target have subcontracted the sealing of the deeds to has shut shop for the duration of lock down. The lady on the phone was as helpful as she could be but the position is they have no idea how long things are postponed for and no plan B. Strictly speaking not all Targets fault but I have to ask, why this legal firm despite having work to do has shut down when, the two banks, conveyance legal firm, and Target HCA itself continue to operate. I am also luckily still working I might add. Has this firm not made provision for the majority of staff to work from home and keep a skeleton staff in place to handle physical documents (the latter being due to the legal fraternity not finding ways to make all their transaction fully electronic)? No it appears not.

So I am left now on the banks variable rate not knowing whether to wait it out or cut my losses and renew with my existing lender at a higher rate. Each day the additional interest I'm paying is accumulating....

Is anyone else in a similar position or with a redemption or staircasing? 

I am in the exact same boat, this has been ongoing since early February, they have lost paperwork, given us wrong addresses to send paperwork to, keep asking for things that they did not need before - every time we called they wanted something extra that was not on the original guide.  My solicitor is at their witts end with this.  We are now going to try and lodge a complaint with the FO, as we just called up again, and they asked, can you send all to documentation again..............  We have sent everything 2/3/4 times already, by email and recorded delivery.  They cause more stress at an already stressful time, so time to put our complaints in I think.  There is no need to use Covid as an excuse, my Solicitor is working from home, so I would expect their legal side to do the same.