Help To Buy Reviews 278

Send a redemption form for my property - no confirmation from them of receipt or any communication of any kind. I have then followed this up via phone but apparently no one works for them as no one every picks up. Longest I've been waiting is 1hr 30 mins and still everyone is too busy to answer my call. I have since followed up my original form with 4 emails and still now response. I will be filing official complaints with Lenvi and any financial body that Lenvi fall under the jurisdiction of because never in my life experienced such poor service. Surely what I am asking you to do which is to start the redemption process is a streamlined process as you have to deal with it all the time!

I have tried contacting you numerous times via email and phone and not getting anywhere.

I was sent an email at beginning of December stating our account was in arrears due to direct debit not being taken for 3 months.
I made a bank transfer to clear the arrears, but still no confirmation to say this has been applied to my account.

Please can you advise why the payments have ceased to be taken from our bank since September.
I have checked with our bank and the last payment requested was the 4th September 2023.
The direct debit has not been changed or cancelled and there is always available funds.
there has never been an issue with payment being taken in the last 8 years, so struggling to understand why this has happened.

This seems to be a failure on your part to request the money from our account via direct debit.
Secondly, why have you taken this long to send an email regarding this?
Last payment requested by yourselves was in September, so you have caused these arrears by not only failing to request payment for the last 3 payment due dates, but no attempt to contact us to make us aware. We have not changed our contact numbers for over 10 years and if you could not reach us via telephone, either a postal letter or email and after the first arrest occurred should have been composed.

Please can you check our direct debit is set up on your system, as your failure to communicate and/or request funds has caused a lot of issues.
Now in January and again direct debit has not been taken

Paid off my help to buy in May 2020.......the deeds have not been changed still!!!!!!!!!! iv just found this out as im trying to buy a new house. So im stuck like everyone else.

I am currently in the middle of being bought out of my current home & purchasing another home. I have paid off my Equity Loan in June 2023. This has not been removed from the deed, preventing me from purchasing my new home. I was promised from day one this would be escalated. Every other day at the very least, I have wasted up to two hours ringing Lenvi to chase this up & all I get back is contradicting information. "All we can do is send a chaser to the team that deals with this because we do not have a customer service base." All they do is repeat the same thing. They cannot put you onto anyone higher in their position because "no one is available." When I explain that the case is meant to be escalated, they just repeat "we have a backlog."

Honestly - No one do Help to Buy because they are truly in over their heads with this. It is incredibly stressful & financially backwards, if I had known the charges & costs that came with incompetence, I would never have done this.

Currently on hold to Lenvi trying to pay the admin fee to allow the completion of my remortgage. Lenvi are virtually impossible to reach, I’ve spent countless hours on hold to them over the past few months, they do not communicate with the solicitors and nobody seems to know what the next steps are. I am now on a variable rate and my mortgage has gone up over £800 a month which has caused immense stress. The whole process is criminal, it’s cost me nearly £2000 in RICs valuations and it is still not resolved, how they can get away with this is beyond me!

An update to my previous review!

My complaint has now gone silent, nearly 2 months without contact (when they had the cheek to tell me I had to reply within 14 days to prove my financial loss) and now no response to multiple emails sent. To top it all off, you ring the complaints number to be told they are too busy and can't take the call, unbelievable!

Their auto response to negative reviews no longer advises to contact the complaints@ email address. There needs to be a serious review into this company and how they have been awarded the contract for HTB

Taking further legal advice

This would be a 0 if that was possible.
Started a Transfer of Equity in May this year, we are STILL not complete. Been told lie after lie, incorrect information sent over, contradicting conversations with different people and honestly, the most horrendous service. They have LOST our documents and told us our Deeds were being sealed when they were not. I have never ever known anything like it.
The stress this has caused is next level, it's holding up another property purchase and the new mortgage offer for the Transfer expires in December. So, that will be the icing on the cake if they cause that to happen.
I have 2 complaints raised & neither have been dealt with. They fob you off everytime.
I wish we NEVER went down the HTB route. I will be looking into Legal Action for everything they have caused and are still YET to do.

I'd been dreading selling as everyone had said the process is a nightmare, yet my experience has been total opposite and nothing but great! Jagpal Singh has offered amazing service and I'm super grateful. Thank you!

I paid off my Help To Buy loan in full back in 2021, but the charge STILL hasn't been removed by LENVI and so the loan continues to show against my name with Land Registry.

My mortgage deal runs out next month and this issue is now preventing me from remortgaging. My solicitors have spent MONTHS sending urgent emails to LENVI as well as making countless calls, but they have heard nothing back. The situation is now desperate and I am having sleepless nights; if LENVI don't provide my solicitors with a DS1 in time then my bank will move me to a variable mortgage rate which I can't afford, meaning I'm likely to lose my property.

I have been advised to make a formal complaint to my Financial Ombudsman which I'll be submitting shortly, but I don't know what good it will do. Following that, I see no other option but to take annual leave from work, travel from London to the LENVI offices in Cardiff and stand in the lobby until someone helps me.

I repaid my HTB loan 3 months ago, have already moved out yet am still receiving letters about paying it off/removal of the DS1 charge. Each call is met with an hour on hold followed by the line cutting out.

So stressful!!
I have been trying to sell my house for the past few months and despite daily phone calls and promises of help I am on the verge of loosing my sale. Lenvi cannot provide me with the information I need for my buyer’s solicitor even though my solicitor has written to them twice. Sometimes I’ve spent over four hours a day on the phone to them. On Friday I phoned them three times and I still haven’t received the paperwork I need. I feel very let down by the entire process and despair at the rising costs.
I have tonight written to my local MP for desperate help!

Wow lies just lies and all they say is sorry you were told false information we will improve are training. Great what about the huge financial stress and mental stress its caused us and still is as still not sorted been going on since March.
No one to take responsibility for what's happening to 1000s people just trying to pay off their help to buy or sell their house etc.
House of England won't get involved .
No one accountable.
Thankfully we been able to extend our Mortgage offer until November just praying it gets resolved by then or we may loss are home but it's ok as they sympathise and understand.

The original valuation was provided to them and approved back in August.

On the day of exchange for my partner's flat they then requested a further desktop valuation (the original was an in person valuation).

This was arranged and provided to them within 48 hours - sent on 8th Sept.

It has been marked as Urgent and is with Help 2 Buy's legal department. 

We have called every day since to chase. No ETA has been provided. 

There are numerous families in the chain about to collapse. We're at risk of loosing over £10,000 in fees and costs.

We just want to PAY BACK the HTB loan!!!!

**PLEASE HELP**

I have been having a difficult time communicating with Help To Buy, often being on hold for a long time then getting cut off after 60 minutes. Today I got through to Heythem who was AMAZING. I'm on a deadline of Wednesday to complete on my house sale and Heythem just sorted everything there and then. An absolute credit to your customer services team.

Since Lenvi took on the help to buy administration, progress has been non existant. We paid off our equity loan a year ago and we are still waiting for Lenvi to provide a signature so that we can complete the process with Land Registry. We have tried multiple times to get through and we keep getting told 20 working days for Lenvi to provide a single signature. Our house sale is being held up by this and you are unable to speak to a team leader. I have been told on multiple occasions that a team leader will contact me and I haven't heard anything. We are well past the 20 working days and it is impossible to get any progress. Lenvi is stopping people's lives through taking on the admin of Help to Buy without having the means to deal with all the issues. Being able to speak to someone that is able to action it rather than just log information would be an unbelievable start. Help to buy are happy to take the equity loan money but aren't happy to provide you with the required paperwork to remove the charge. It is farcical

Feedback from response from Lenvi - Improving the ability to get hold of people is one thing but the key is providing people with the documentation that they need. There is no benefit in having the phones picked up quicker if you are unable to action anything in a timely manner. The simplest way to improve call times is by getting paperwork over to people so they don't have to call!!!

Called up this morning and Spoken to Dylan Jones. He was enormously helpful and dealt with my query whilst on the telephone. They have only recently taken over from Target so a few teething problems are to be expected.
Dylan is a credit to Help to Buy, he was professional and courteous, with a great friendly and understanding demeanour.
Thank you for the great experience today and for dealing with my query speedily and professionally.

I'm one of many unfortunate people who are having to deal with Lenvi due to HTB loan administration being passed to this shambles of a company, after Homes for England's contract with Target HCA ended.

My solicitor sent £28,000 of my money on the 9th June and a completed DS1 document, yet three months later and the charge has not been released by the land registry.

I am now in an unfortunate situation where I'm trying to sell my property, using the equity to put into my new purchase. That equity is now £28,000 less than it should be because Lenvi are useless. Like others, it takes multiple attempts to get through on the phone and emails are not responded to within 10 working days.

I have been waiting since May for deed of postponement and release to be sealed to compete a transfer of equity. Originally advised the process would take 4-6 weeks, and we are now week 15 and counting due to a catalogue of errors and delays by Lenvi. Advisors make things up as they go and no one seems to understand the process or follow through on what they say they will do. We were advised this week they will take a further 6-8 weeks to seal the deeds as they forgot to send a document to their sealing team. My property purchase is now going to fall through and I will lose thousands of pounds. I will be seeking legal action against this company.

Hopefully this gets through to senior management I’m at my whits end with getting through to anyone , target / lenvi and homes for England all know about my case and that the ombudsman have upheld my complaint and was told that today 08/09/2023 I would be getting what I’m owed from target and homes for England , yet again all gone missing and now my mental health has caused me to take time off work due to all what has been going on over the past 6 years .
I’m now going direct to the press and the bbc as I put this off when approached last month because I was told it was being dealt with!!!