anyone understand the Governments Help to buy scheme

[zoe3003]

We did help to buy as there was no way we would have afforded a house otherwise.
One thing that would be good for you is if you are building your business you will have an interest free loan (well you pay £1 a month) for 5yrs.

[catherinesian]

Around my area the new houses are ridiculously expensive with postage stamp fully overlooked gardens and paper thin walls. For the price we have just sold our extended + fully refurbished 1930's 4 bed semi for, you could just about get a tiny 3 bed terrace. My dad bought a newbuild and had endless problems - he is now out of his NHBC warranty period and the roof still leaks, despite them coming countless times to fix it for him. Not for me!

Surely if you looked at an older house you would be able to afford something much bigger / better with the amount of mortgage you have?

[catlady]

You have to pass an affordability test for the HTB separately to the mortgage application, so might be worth doing that first to see if you would be accepted? I personally would use a whole market financial adviser to see what mortgage you would be offered too, without HTB? It might cost you a fee but they can be worth that if they can find you a good deal?

With HTB you start paying interest on the loan at the end of 5 years (so beginning of year 6?) The interest then increases each year. As others have said you cannot make any major changes without permission form HTB as they have a legal charge on the property. When you sell or repay the loan you have to have a mortgage style re valuation done (you pay), and you pay 20% of the value if the property, so can be more if the value has risen.

There are calculators online which gives you more info on interest etc.

[SquishTheWhale]

We have just purchase our first house and decided against help to buy, either the new build scheme or the shared equity scheme, as it seemed to add so much complication with the mortgage companies and solicitors. We decided on just buying a cheaper older house in the end. The new build houses here were so over priced as well.

[hideinpockets]

I’d really recommend Habito, it’s an online mortgage broker, everything is submitted online, we used them and they were excellent. They don’t charge either and were so helpful and quick to respond. Anyway may be worth doing a check with them / speaking to them to identify how much you could borrow with and without help to buy so you can fully identify what you can buy.