Help to Buy Equity Loan & Shared Ownership

• With an Equity Loan the Government lends you up to 20% of the cost of your newly built home, so you will only need a 5% cash deposit and a 75% mortgage to make up the rest.
• You will not be charged loan fees on the 20% loan for the first five years of owning your home.
• Equity loans are available to first time buyers as well as homeowners looking to move. 
• The home you want to buy must be newly built by a Help To Buy accredited Builder, with a price tag of up to £600,000.
• You will not be able to sublet this home or enter a part exchange deal on your old home. 
• You must not own any other property at the time you buy your new home with a Help to Buy: Equity Loan

In the Budget 2018 it was announced that the Help to Buy scheme would be coming to an end in March 2023. A new version of the Help to Buy scheme will operate from 1 April 2021 until 31 March 2023 which introduces changes to ensure the scheme is better targeted towards those who most need support to achieve home ownership. The key changes are:

• The scheme will only be available for first time buyers, defined as those who have not previously owned or purchased property.
• The scheme will introduce regional property price caps based on local markets, which will set the maximum price of a new build home that can be bought with Help to Buy in any region.

The regional caps are set out in table below:

Price cap for properties eligible for Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme from April 2021 to March 2023

North East £186,100

North West £224,400

Yorkshire & The Humber £228,100

East Midlands £261,900

West Midlands £255,600

East of England £407,400

London £600,000

South East £437,600

South West £349,000

If you can’t quite afford the mortgage on 100% of a home, Help to Buy: Shared Ownership offers you the chance to buy a share of your home (between 25% and 75% of the home’s value) and pay rent on the remaining share. Later, you could buy bigger shares when you can afford to.

You could buy a home through Help to Buy: Shared Ownership in England if:

• your household earns £80,000 a year or less outside London, or your household earns £90,000 a year or less in London
• you are a first-time buyer, you used to own a home but cannot afford to buy one now or are an existing shared owner looking to move.

With Help to Buy: Shared Ownership you can buy a newly built home or an existing one through resale programmes from housing associations. You will need to take out a mortgage to pay for your share of the home’s purchase price, or fund this through your savings. Shared Ownership properties are always leasehold.

Only military personnel will be given priority over other groups through government funded shared ownership schemes. However, councils with their own shared ownership home-building programmes may have some priority groups, based on local housing needs.

Home Ownership for People with Long-Term Disabilities (HOLD) can help you buy any home that is for sale on a Shared Ownership basis if you have a long-term disability. You can only apply for HOLD if the properties available through the other home ownership schemes do not meet your needs, eg you need a ground-floor property.

You can get help from another home ownership scheme called Older People’s Shared Ownership if you are aged 55 or over. It works in the same way as the general Shared Ownership scheme, but you can only buy up to 75% of your home. Once you own 75% you will not have to pay rent on the remaining share.

Bristol Mortgages Online www.bristolmortgagesonline.com Tel 0117 325 1511 

Bath Mortgages Online www.bathmortgagesonline.com Tel 01225 584 888 

Exeter Mortgages Online www.exetermortgagesonline.com Tel 01392 690 888 

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