Looming Help to Buy deadline makes partnership choice even more important

While the government made a significant housing-related announcement during the mini-Budget, in the form of the Stamp Duty cut, it resisted calls to extend the Help to Buy scheme. As a result, brokers and their clients face a tight deadline of 31st October in order to get in applications for clients hoping to make use of an equity loan when purchasing a property.

The Help to Buy scheme was always likely to prove popular with borrowers, since it gave them the opportunity to get onto the housing ladder with a deposit of only 5%. The rate of house price growth in recent years has made the prospect of saving a large deposit far more difficult, even before you consider other factors like the poor interest rates on savings, rising inflation and salary worries off the back of the pandemic.

As a result, having a scheme in place which allowed first-time buyers to achieve their housing dreams with a modest deposit has been welcome. Little wonder that since its launch, more than 360,000 homes have been bought using the scheme, with £22.5 billion handed out in equity loans.

Pressing deadlines

Brokers are only too used to working to deadlines, so the closure of the Help to Buy scheme is in itself nothing new.

In recent years, brokers will have had clients battling to beat the various stamp duty deadlines, for example, or who have had to move swiftly in order to avoid moving onto a costly reversion rate.

It’s a good example of the added benefits that brokers offer their clients, which are so often overlooked. A quality adviser does far more than simply help their client identify a cheap mortgage rate – they are a trusted partner, who can assist with getting a deal over the line in time.

When it comes to Help to Buy though, an awful lot is out of the hands of brokers.

A more protracted process

With Help to Buy, there are simply more parties involved in the transaction thanks to the requirement for an equity loan. And just as with housing chains, the more parties are involved in a deal, the easier it is for delays to emerge, holding up the progress of the case.

That would be disappointing enough in normal times, but when there is a hard deadline ahead of us, it becomes even more problematic.

That’s why it’s so important to work with firms that understand the unique challenges that come with Help to Buy cases, and so can avoid the unnecessary delays which may mean that the deadline is missed.

The sad fact is that working with a conveyancer who perhaps has only dealt with a handful of Help to Buy cases may not be sufficiently on top of the expectations and processes involved, ultimately risking the success of the deal entirely. By contrast, working with experts in the field means that you can rest assured that your client will be properly looked after, and see their case reach completion in time for that pressing deadline.

Partnering with the right firms

At eConveyancer, we have spent a lot of time building a comprehensive panel of quality conveyancers that brokers can trust, no matter how unique or challenging a case may be.

Whether it’s Help to Buy, limited company buy to let, or any other niche within the mortgage market, there will be conveyancers who not only have the expertise and knowledge, but also crucially the capacity to assist with the case.

Working with the right panel manager can ease the pressure on brokers, meaning they can quickly identify the right conveyancer for the case, delivering an even better experience to their clients.