Housing Association Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing has written to Housing Minister Chris Pincher MP to request that the current Help to Buy scheme is extended to prevent first time buyer sales collapsing.
Kush Rawal, Director of Residential Investment at Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing commented: “We are committed to helping people have a home and the chance to live well, and are dedicated to supporting aspirational buyers achieve their dream of homeownership. We also share an ambition with the Government to increase levels of affordable homeownership through schemes such as shared ownership, which the Help to Buy scheme has supported well in recent years.
However, a number of our customers are set to lose out on their dream homes solely due to unavoidable delays to construction as a direct consequence of the pandemic. And they are not alone. Across England, a large number of buyers are facing a similarly desperate situation whereby their dream of homeownership will be lost if the government does not extend the current Help to Buy completion deadline of 28 February 2021 for new build homes.
“The construction sector is just one of many that has felt the enormous effects of Covid-19 over the last 10 months, with completions for new homes inevitably delayed due to site closures, reduced teams on site to comply with social distancing, and issues with supplies. We are therefore asking the government to show flexibility, as it has done throughout the pandemic, and provide an extension to the existing Help to Buy scheme to guarantee that transactions on new build properties that have progressed to the point of completion will go ahead as planned.
“If this technical change is not made, first time buyers across the country may see their purchases collapse, incur additional costs or even abandon purchases, which would be bad news for them, housing providers and the wider market. There’s still time to act, so we look forward to working with the government to resolve this issue.”
Kush Rawal has written to the Housing Minister, Chris Pincher MP, to request that the current deadlines are amended to avoid this issue affecting first time buyers.
Despite the unprecedented challenges the pandemic has posed for the country and the housing sector over the last year, MTVH, through its market-leading shared ownership brand ‘SO Resi’, has continued to support people to purchase new homes. In fact, in November, SO Resi saw enquiries increase by 88% when compared to the same month in 2019, and 59 completions and 70 exchanges were delivered in that record-breaking month.
