Help to Buy not answering phone

catdad

It's a good point on the termination, the last thing we want is more chaos. Perhaps we should take it out.

sunny_money

Not sure about taking it out completely, maybe we can amend it to something like: 

2. To terminate the Lenvi contract and give management of the HTB Scheme to a company or public body, with an independently managed hand over to ensure there are no further impacts on customers. 

I’m not super precious about this if it’s going to cause delays submitting the petition though. I’m so grateful to everyone working in this. Should we aim to submit the petition by end of day Monday 3rd? 

marmitesocks

sunny_money said:

Not sure about taking it out completely, maybe we can amend it to something like: 

2. To terminate the Lenvi contract and give management of the HTB Scheme to a company or public body, with an independently managed hand over to ensure there are no further impacts on customers. 

I’m not super precious about this if it’s going to cause delays submitting the petition though. I’m so grateful to everyone working in this. Should we aim to submit the petition by end of day Monday 3rd? 

I would love to get it up today to be honest!

But selfishly as I will need to focus back on my work work on Monday.

marmitesocks

Building on others thoughts, some alternative ideas....

A. To terminate the Lenvi contract and give management of the HTB Scheme to a company or public body, with an independently managed hand over to ensure there are no further impacts on customers. (@sunny_money idea for text)

B. To conduct an evaluation/review (?) into whether the Lenvi contract should be terminated and management of the HTB Scheme responsibly handed over to an independently managed company or public body, to ensure there are no further impacts on customers. 

C. To remove completely or another wording

What do people think?

sunny_money

marmitesocks said:

Building on others thoughts, some alternative ideas....

A. To terminate the Lenvi contract and give management of the HTB Scheme to a company or public body, with an independently managed hand over to ensure there are no further impacts on customers. (@sunny_money idea for text)

B. To conduct an evaluation/review (?) into whether the Lenvi contract should be terminated and management of the HTB Scheme responsibly handed over to an independently managed company or public body, to ensure there are no further impacts on customers. 

C. To remove completely or another wording

What do people think?

Personally I think option B is the way to go, still addresses the point but reduces concerns about hand over chaos. 

marmitesocks

Below is the final text intended for a Petition to UK Government and Parliament.

(Removed by Forum Team)

The petition text:

What do you want us to do?

Review the failures of the new Help to Buy contractor and ensure compensation for people affected.

Tell us more about what you want the Government or Parliament to do

1. To ensure all HTB customers who have incurred financial losses or other damages due to the failures of Lenvi and/or Homes England receive adequate compensation in a timely manner.

2. To conduct a review into whether the Lenvi contract should be terminated and management of the HTB Scheme responsibly handed over to an independently managed company or public body, to ensure there are no further impacts on customers. 

3. To set up an independent review into how this contract was awarded to Lenvi and whether this was done in a proper and diligent way, to help ensure that no future government contract of this importance be given to a company unable to provide the service they have promised.

Tell us more about why you want the Government or Parliament to do it

In June 2023 Homes England passed management of the Help to Buy (HTB) Scheme to Lenvi, the trading name of Equiniti Gateway Limited. Since taking this on Lenvi have failed to provide crucial services. Mortgage holders with a HTB loan who are attempting to re-mortgage or sell their property are unable to establish contact with Lenvi. Lenvi have been consistently failing to answer their phone lines, respond to emails or address contacts made to their social media accounts.

The result of this is that many customers have been delayed or even lost their property sales or re-mortgages and are facing serious financial losses in the middle of a cost of living and mortgage crisis.

sunny_money

Sounds good enough to me! 

catdad

Looks good to me too.

marmitesocks

give me a few mins.....loading the text into the online form and it wont accept it as way too long!

redux

I'm not affected by this, but just read the thread out of curiosity, and partly as I'm not sure whether someone in the family is still involved in it

A small observation

sunny_money said:

I believe this is Lenvi's details: 
LENVI LIMITED people - Find and update company information - GOV.UK (company-information.service.gov.uk) 
Contact Us - Lenvi 

I phoned them on 0844 811 8039 and they said that the Help to Buy part is a 'different arm' and therefore they are unable to help. I said that it may be a different arm but it is the same company so can I speak to a manager that overseas this arm or have your complaints email address, and they refused and said all they can do is give me the Help to Buy phone number and email?! Lenvi are protecting themselves and have no concern for their Help to Buy clients. 

An 0844 number is a premium rate number, not inclusive in any call bundles, and will cost several pence a minute to call

Much better to use the 0300 number given on the contact page, and in some posts on the thread, which is inclusive in call bundles, or would be cheaper per minute outside a bundle