Reserving help to buy

Clarice1995

Hi

Just looking for some advice/a rant really.

Had an absolute nightmare with reserving a help to buy advertised property! Sorry t

We reserved the property on 25th June and paid, initially £1,000 reservation fee.

Our mortgage adviser submitted our mortgage and help to buy application on the 28th June. Mortgage application was accepted subject to the survey but help to buy came back to us on the 2nd July and stated that they couldn’t find the builder was registered with their scheme and that the £1,000 reservation fee should only be £500. This was passed immediately to the Estate Agent who promised to investigate and sort with the builder and send back our £500.

The builder was off on holiday for a week, but it was brought to his teams attention and then brought to his attention on 15th July. In the meantime, we found out from Natwest that our survey had been put on hold buy the Estate Agents which they didn’t let us know about. We also still didn’t have our £500. I then complained to the Estate Agents simply stating that the help to buy should have been set up before we reserved, they should have told us the survey was cancelled and that communication and urgency should be better than what we had receiving. They acknowledged this and said that the registration process just needed ‘topping and tailing’ and they will be sending our £500 to our solicitors.

We also spoke with the builder who explained it was something to do with planning permission but we were assured this would be sorted by the end of July, as did the Estate Agent.

Fast forward to the beginning of August, ask for updates and am told no update. 9th August then comes, and we get a call to say they are awfully sorry and embarrassed, but the problem was actually an email that had been deleted from help to buy to the builder. Unfortunately, as the help to buy was not set up correctly we cannot legally reserve the property or have any binding contracts as if help to buy find out that we have reserved before the registration is complete they will not fund us. Also, to add this would take a further 10 -12 weeks before they are registered with Help to Buy. The builder has assured us the house will still be ours and kept for us so we can continue to make flooring and bathroom choices etc.

Our mortgage application can only be on hold for 2 months, so will pass this deadline which means if for any reason interest rates rise, we could get a worse deal than what we thought we could get. As the solicitor’s paperwork is also dated pre-registration, they will need to draw up more paperwork and potentially charge us extra for this.

Just wondering where I stand with all this, we are first time buyers and have never had to deal with a situation like this and I just feel appalled by the whole situation! We love the house and want it but seems like they have messed up everything and really haven’t been helpful in establishing the problem in the first place.

Any advice would be great.

thanks

[Deleted User]

I think you want the Mortgages board, not the Credit Card board

MallyGirl

Hi - I am going to move this to a more appropriate location to try and get you better answers

amnblog

Sounds like a mess around Clarice.

We would not have put in the mortgage application without the Help to Buy offer which may have made matters a little less complicated.

It sounds like your options are to go ahead with this property or ditch it altogether.

My concern would be buying from a Builder which such poor organisation.

Hungary971

I would be very concerned if they are this bad admin wise how can you trust house quality

Which builder ?

DanG85

Sounds awfully dodgy especially as we were told the maximum reservation fee is £500 up front by Redrow.

We also managed to reserve without anything in place as it’s a fairly new site. Redrow had everything on hold until last month when they got addresses and the site was added to the help to buy system, that’s when we proceeded with H2B. Had it reserved for 3 months before this with no problem.

Clarice1995

Yes this is the problem, the builder has such a good reputation around my area and his homes are known for being a good quality build.

This is the first development where help to buy have been used so I am guessing he didn’t really know what he was doing and made errors but surely the Estate Agents should of completed the relevant checks to ensure this was set up before advertising the property as help to buy! Crazy!

Thank you for replying

Clarice1995

Would anyone think it would be cheeky of me to ask for certain extras paid for ?