Help to Buy a new build checklist

Checklists

Help to Buy a new build

Checklist provided by 

www.barratthomes.co.uk

 

 

Find out which developers are offering the Help to Buy Scheme in your local area.

Make sure you have a 5% deposit available. For example, if the property is being sold for £100,000, you will need £5,000, plus your buying and moving costs.

The Help to Buy Scheme is available to all developers, small and large, so make sure you check out all your local developments.

 

If you have found a new build scheme you like which offers the Help to Buy Scheme, visit www.helptobuy.gov.uk.

 

Read the Help to Buy Guide so you understand whether you are eligible for some help to buy a new build home.

 

Identify your local HomeBuy agent.

 

Once you have found a property you want to buy through the Help to Buy Scheme, you can make an offer to the developer. Please note, you do not have to offer the full asking price.

Once your offer is accepted, the developer will reserve the property for you at a cost of no more than £500.

You will need to find a mortgage lender and legal company that can support your purchase. Ideally, make sure the lender and legal company has worked with this or similar schemes in the past.

Your application will be made which the mortgage lender and legal company will handle for you.

You will need to complete the Help to Buy Property Information Form, which the developer will give to you, this form confirms your agreement to the scheme funds.

You will need to confirm that the Help to Buy home will be your only residence. You will not be allowed to sub-let your property.

Your local HomeBuy agent will give you an Authority to Proceed along with instructions for your legal company.

To enable you to exchange contracts, you will need to have your deposit monies ready.

When all the finances and legal paperwork have been completed, you will be ready to exchange contracts.

Once you have exchanged, you can organise your move either using a 'man with a van' or a removals company, or if moving yourself, hiring a van.

Make sure you organise your change of address and consider using the Post Office redirection service for three to six months.

On completion, your legal company and lender will organise for the developer to be paid for the property.

The Homes and Communities Agency, on instruction from your legal company, will release their funding to the developer.

You will not fully own the property until the loan is repaid, although you won't have to make any interest payments on the loan for the first five years.

A 'second charge' will be placed on the property at the Land Registry so that if you sell the property, you will have to pay back the percentage of the property's value you have been loaned.

For example:

If you bought a property for £100,000

The HCA loan is 20% ie £100,000 x 20% = £20,000

If you sell the property for £120,000. The HCA loan to pay back is 20% ie £120,000 x 20% = £24,000

You must repay the percentage contribution when you sell your home or after 25 years, whichever is the earlier.

 


All our information is brought to you by Kate Faulkner OBE, author of Which? Property books and one of the UK's top property experts.
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