HTB Redemption Delaying Purchase, Potential To Collapse Chain.

Gamehungry

Hi,

Wondering if anyone is in a similar situation or they can provide any advice or support?

We put our house up on the market just before COVID & actually accepted an offer just after lockdown was eased & viewings were allowed again. A week after this we found a property & had our offer accepted. 

The whole sale & purchase process started the last week of May therefore. We got our mortgage offer on the 30th June. 

The house we are purchasing was built in 2013 & unfortunately still has a HTB Loan outstanding, our sellers applied to clear this loan fairly early on in the process & this is where the problems started. 

As we in partial lockdown at the time our sellers initially got a desktop valuation & sent this through to Target HCA, this was rejected a couple of weeks later & a full valuation was carried out on the 7th July & subsequently sent through to Target HCA.  Since this date our sellers have rang daily & had no significant update other then "it's been looked at"! 

Now everything else has been taken care of & it's only this aspect that is now holding up the chain. We're worried that our buyers will soon apply pressure as is there right & the chain could collapse if this is delayed any further.

It's only a small chain of 4 & as I've said everything else is taken care of so everyone is waiting on this. 

I can't ring Target myself as I have no direct relationship with them. I have however emailed them as a third party to ask this be looked at ASAP. Having not had much luck there I managed to find the email address for the CEO & Director Of Customer Operations, I had initial success with the customer operations guy saying it would be passed on to the relevant team. After this & subsequent emails I've had nothing back & it's gone silent. 

Help!

jaxkesa

I'm in a similar position where I'm buying a property where the owners have Help to Buy. The estate agent expects to exchange by the end of the month but they've only just had the HtB valuation done so can't see how that will happen if Target are taking 6 weeks to process redemptions.

Gamehungry

jaxkesa said:

I'm in a similar position where I'm buying a property where the owners have Help to Buy. The estate agent expects to exchange by the end of the month but they've only just had the HtB valuation done so can't see how that will happen if Target are taking 6 weeks to process redemptions.

Sorry to hear you're in a similar situation. It doesn't help that I can't speak to Target directly, just leaves us in the dark. The estate agents tell me our sellers are contacting them everyday & I have no reason not to believe that. They have also raised 2 complaints & had no reply to either, apprantley they're told every time they ring up that it'll be dealt with.

My worry is if the valuation wasn't acceptable (I know they're very strict) then it would add another huge delay. Target haven't told the sellers if the valuation has even been accepted yet.