Target HCA and Homes England

jjbrunton20

I'm just looking for some advice on our current situation if possible.

We sold our flat which has an EWS1 rating of A2 on the 22nd of July to a cash buyer that has offered above market value (odd I know) but we're completely stuck. I'd go as far as saying I'm desperate at this point. As part of the property purchase, I took out the Help to Buy scheme offered by Homes England which is administered by Target HCA, if you are unfamiliar, they also need to approve the sale for you to complete successfully.

My problem is that the sale documents were submitted to Target on the 22nd of July, since then, we have received no information regarding the redemption pack. I have called them every other day for the past three months with very little success. We have started the process of getting the financial ombudsman involved, but they are unlikely to allocate a cast worker for another 3 months likely after the sale has already fallen through.

We are in the final stage of our sale now with the buyer informing us that they will need to pull out of the sale otherwise they risk their buyer pulling out of their purchase, when I express this to Target I have been told "Manage your buyer's expectations" and that "No timeframes are given for this work".

Our local MP is engaged but even she (Caroline Dineage) can't get any information from Homes England which is an utter shambles, if the MP is unable to gain information from a government department, what hope do I have?

I'm unable to contact Homes England directly although I have lodged a complaint against them which is 4 weeks in with no response other than an acknowledgment.

Has anyone gone through this before? If our buyer pulls out, the market price of flats in our building has dropped by £10,000 so we're immediately out of pocket as well as any solicitor fees that have been incurred from them chasing Target as well.

I'd like to take legal action against them if possible but I'm worried that they'll have a wormy way out of a 3-month timescale.

AFF8879

Do you have an onward purchase that might also fall through? Not that it makes much difference I guess but if not at least that’s one less thing to stress over.

Not sure what else any of us can really say, Target HCA have a reputation for being absolutely dire (just look at their trustpilot reviews). Are you desperate to sell for any particular reason? If it’s just that you want to move, could you consider letting your flat out? I know it’s not ideal and shouldn’t be needed but if it gets you in the right headspace it might be a temporary solution 

madteapot

This is not directly relevant but might help. If you are selling property and paying the HTB equity loan then you don't need their "approval" as such especially if you are not selling under 10% (I think) of the original purchase price you paid. You need to make sure you have the RICS valuation before the sale and that you have signed repayment application form via your solicitor. If by completion HCA doesn't respond and process the redemption application then your solicitor can retain the amount to be repaid to HCA and any admin fees. 

The reason I know is that our solicitor completely dropped the ball in regards to help to buy equity loan redemption until after the exchange. Only when they sent me completion statement that I reminded them they need to pay the equity loan from sale amount. This was two days before completion so I didn't even have RICS valuation as I wasn't aware. Luckily we managed to get surveyor in for valuation on the completion day. The valuation report was produced 2 days after completion and the solicitor retained relevant amount to repay equity loan.

I am not sure why your buyer would have to worry about your equity loan. Obviously as long as your solicitor gives undertaking that they are retaining the money for equity loan and will work on getting the second charge removed from the property for the equity loan it should all be fine. 

plankton_path_probable

Hi OP,

Not sure if you are still monitoring this thread, but I just had a very similar experience with Target HCA and Homes England.

We were unfortunate that the sale price of our flat was more than 10% lower than the original purchase price, which seemed to push our case down some obscure internal process with no given timescales to complete.

We asked for the redemption quote paperwork in July 2021, and despite their "normal" timescales being 10-15 days for them to issue the redemption quote, we only managed to get it in November 2021 and only once we had submitted a second valuation which came in just within the 10% threshold, when shock...they immediately processed the redemption quote...

I've made a complaint which they have not upheld, and so my next step is the financial ombudsman and after that small claims court given that we had to repay thousands more than we should have done.

Feel free to reach out and let me know how you got on with your sale in the end!

Thanks

BirchFozz

jjbrunton20 said:

I'm just looking for some advice on our current situation if possible.

We sold our flat which has an EWS1 rating of A2 on the 22nd of July to a cash buyer that has offered above market value (odd I know) but we're completely stuck. I'd go as far as saying I'm desperate at this point. As part of the property purchase, I took out the Help to Buy scheme offered by Homes England which is administered by Target HCA, if you are unfamiliar, they also need to approve the sale for you to complete successfully.

My problem is that the sale documents were submitted to Target on the 22nd of July, since then, we have received no information regarding the redemption pack. I have called them every other day for the past three months with very little success. We have started the process of getting the financial ombudsman involved, but they are unlikely to allocate a cast worker for another 3 months likely after the sale has already fallen through.

We are in the final stage of our sale now with the buyer informing us that they will need to pull out of the sale otherwise they risk their buyer pulling out of their purchase, when I express this to Target I have been told "Manage your buyer's expectations" and that "No timeframes are given for this work".

Our local MP is engaged but even she (Caroline Dineage) can't get any information from Homes England which is an utter shambles, if the MP is unable to gain information from a government department, what hope do I have?

I'm unable to contact Homes England directly although I have lodged a complaint against them which is 4 weeks in with no response other than an acknowledgment.

Has anyone gone through this before? If our buyer pulls out, the market price of flats in our building has dropped by £10,000 so we're immediately out of pocket as well as any solicitor fees that have been incurred from them chasing Target as well.

I'd like to take legal action against them if possible but I'm worried that they'll have a wormy way out of a 3-month timescale.

Hello 👋🏽 small world we are also selling via HTB and a flat with EWS1 - you don’t live in Gosport do you (Ark Royal?) 

we’ve held off submitting our loan redemption / having valuation done die to EWS1 issues and lenders etc. 

Did you get anywhere with this process at all? 

Kind regards 
steph