Target Group Reviews 268

We purchased our house using the government help to buy scheme, which they then sold the debt to Target. After 6 years we decided we were in a position to extend our borrowing on our mortgage to repay this loan. After reading so many negative reviews, we were so worried we were going to have an awful experience. Our experience on the other hand couldn't of been better. We managed to get everything done within 1 month, I feel you just have to be organised and not to let anything go beyond it's date. We sorted out solicitors first, then requested our settlement figure, had our home valued by a charted surveyor, forwarded this to target who produced our settlement figure, organised our additional borrowing from the bank, gave 15 days notice to target that we would be paying. The solicitors transfered the funds on the agreed date and we were finished.

It just takes a little time and organising and this really doesn't have to be a terrible experience.

After reading all of the reviews we were really worried about how the process of paying back our help to buy loan would go! First thing is first, the help to buy loan scheme provided by the government is an absolute con. They give you this money and claim its to help you, its not its so they can sell the debt to companies like target and make a profit. Target then benefit from this too. I wonder which MP owns target? Total corruption but thats the country we live in.
First we got our house valued by a RICS specialist ( £350 ) which seems ridiculous it took less time than if an estate agent came, 10 minutes maximum. We then hired a solicitor ( £980 ) I find it absurd that Target require a solicitor to press a button to do a bank transfer, I can do that for free! The bank were willing to send us the money so we could pay target. Again another money making scheme that is not necessary to boost our economy! It took Target only 3 days to be fair to send us our redemption fee. The bank then sent the money and the solicitor transferred it. It was a smooth process and it was all done and dusted in 5 weeks which we are very grateful for. It sounds like some people have had a terrible experience, ours wasn't. Would we do it again? Never, we are pleased we did do it as we wouldn't have the home we wanted if we didn't. But our dealings with Target have been good, quick and simple.

I had a terrible experience when coming to sell my help to buy flat and repay the loan through Target HCA.
At first Target rejected my RICS evaluation as it was, according to them, out of date. I sent Target a new, desktop evaluation, which they refused to accept. Target advised that in order to sell my property (this was the day before completion) I needed a new RICS survey.
Two days after I was due to complete, £120 later and a new survey, Target then called to say they would now accept my original survey.
The incompetence in this company is baffling. My solicitors and surveyors were shocked, confused and had never heard of this before.
I raised a complaint with Target prior to them accepting my original RICS survey, I can only assume that the complaint caused them to accept the survey.
I then raised a second complaint seeking reimbursement, Target reimbursed my funds but only after I chased them.
Where possible, avoid using and if at all possible, repay the loan as soon as possible.

FREE AT LAST
I been dealing with Target issues for four years, They don't have case handlers so you are repeatedly asked for documents already submitted and staff members contradict information other colleagues have given. I accumulated over £2000 in extra solicitors fees. Original documents requested on the basis they would return to me got lost in transit from post room to office. Today my re-mortgage was completed and I don't need to communicate with Target again. I would not advise anyone to have any dealings with Target.

I, along with many others here am currently at the mercy of Target and going through a remortgage. Our deed of postponement was sent for sealing at the end of October, we were told this would take 4 to 6 weeks, here we are in January and we are no further forward and all my contact is seemingly being ignored.

We've gone on to a variable mortgage rate as a result and it's been nothing short of a financial nightmare.

I'm extremely concerned our new mortgage deal is going to expire before target pull their finger out.

*Edit to add: I lodged a formal complaint with Homes England and this finally got us our deed of postponement, the very next day. I would suggest anybody else having trouble with delays try this and see if it helps.

We had a great experience with Target to pay back our loan as part of a flat sale. Due to an unreasonable buyer we had one week notice of a simultaneous exchange and completion on our flat sale. We were in a blind panic to get the HTB loan redemption and agreement to complete from Target before our sale completion date - within 24 hours of us providing Target with all the relevant information and a couple of phonecalls to them they actioned the redemption and completion agreement. We got through on the phone straight away. Thank you!

Phoned this company and mis represented the FCA and GDPR acts, currently being investigated.

Awful communication.

Initially I requested the information needed to remortgage, I provided the incorrect reference number, which was my fault (although it was noted on early documentation from them), but then was ignored rather than notified my account couldn’t be found. I had to chase twice and 2 weeks later was told it was wrong.

I then was sent an information pack that did not stipulate that the mortgage offer from our first charge lender was required, but this was outlined in the email body so I asked for clarification.

Upon sending the documents I had to chase 3 weeks later for confirmation that they have received everything they needed to be told that day that they needed our original mortgage offer from 2017, not our current offer. WHY? And this is not stipulated.

Why would anyone think you needed to provide your original offer, from over 5yrs ago, not the offer for your current mortgage?

Have absolutely 0 faith in this being completed on time if my current experience and these other reviews are anything to go by.

Proven correct - we are now on variable rates and still waiting for Target and Homes England to pull their fingers out.

Have raised a formal complaint and will be escalating this to the FCO if an appropriate outcome isn’t reached.

These guys are total clowns. I'll second those who've said they don't talk to each other within the company.

I've just paid off my HTB portion of my mortgage, and when it came time to complete, they said I still owed for the monthly management fee even though I'd paid ahead months prior in order to avoid any more monthly reminders coming through, which still came through anyway.

Each of the next 4 months I rang up and asked them to acknowledge their mistake, which they always did, and fix it, which they never did. In the end they still sent a final statement with the incorrect figure, with not enough time to amend it before my completion date.

I've had to pay it and now I'm trying to recoup the difference, and what a suprise they can't seem to find any record of my over-payment.

Total crooks, over what is nothing in the grand scheme of what I've had to pay them in total. They want money from you, they send all the letters. You want a mistake fixing, sorry, no idea what you're talking about.

The amount of time spent on hold (press option 2 to talk to someone quicker than option 1, neither seem to help much anyway) is another great feather in their cap too. You're best off ringing them up on a morning and you might get to talk to someone by the afternoon.

Avoid this lot like the plague if at all possible. A totally one-sided relationship once entered and an absolute ball ache to try and close out.

Scammers,
After 5 days of calling still no one is answering their phones, this is how they get away with fraud! By simple not answering calls.
The only way to get to speak with someone is to cancel your payments, then they will call you the next day.
Everyone should cancel their payments and take your chance in court “ you will win”, as they are completely in.

Great service from Ryan this morning, asked if he could kindly email me my redemption figure due to the up and coming postal strikes and he kindly agreed.

There’s lots of bad reviews on here but both my experiences have been great, I suppose it sometimes depends on how you speak to people and that will determine the level of customer service you receive.

Thanks again Ryan 👍🏼

Frustrating experience. Their staff contradicts each other, we already got money from the bank and we are trying to pay to target. But every week they say they require something else, then we call them back to check whether it’s needed and the person on the phone says everything is fine and they will send our quote soon, then week later we don’t have quote, we call them and apparently we need something else. And the person on the phone is saying that we were misinformed and that we required to produce extra papers even though another person on the phone says we don't.
What kind of service is this? Who is answering your phone? Random people from the street? Appalling service.

Honestly I don't even know where to start with this company.

My partner and I originally started the re-mortgage process on our property in October 2021. Due to constant delays and errors on Target's behalf (we went through about 3 different Deeds of Postponement), we lost out on a very reasonable fixed rate which should have come into play in February 2022 (when our original fixed rate ended). We had to ask for several extensions on the offer due to paperwork errors and delays, to the point where our lender basically said enough is enough and withdrew our offer.

We raised a complaint (and seeing as Target couldn't even stick to their complaint deadlines, its no wonder we had so many issues with our Deed of Postponement) and still nothing was happening. Target even tried to blame our solicitor for an error on one of the Deeds of Postponement, even though in this time they changed their process and failed to tell our solicitors about this until it arrived with them! Even after sending over a revised and correct version, we were never updated by Target as to what was happening.

We have now been on a variable rate since February 2022. We are now paying over £300 more on our mortgage (which is going up month by month due to interest rates), with still no end in sight as to when we will complete on the new offer we have been given.

Target have actually upheld our original complaint and have reimbursed us, but this has had to go solely on our credit cards as we are struggling to get by on our income due to the increases on our variable rate. The complaint was also referred to the Financial Ombudsman who have also upheld our complaint. Target tried to say that a refund of our £115 admin fee was sufficient compensation for the distress we have experienced! It's an admin fee! You're paid this for you to do your job!

We were assured that our new Deed of Postponement would be fast-tracked to avoid any further financial losses. Well guess what? We've chased the new Deed of Postponement with Target again, who assured us that it was sent to our solicitors. We asked for a tracking number which showed it had been delivered and signed for. However, it turns out that Target have sent this to our old solicitor and not the one declared on the new paperwork. Previously when we got the new offer, they also sent the original Deed of Postponement to our solicitor with the old offer we had. You honestly can't make this up.

Our next deadline for us to complete to get a fixed rate is the 15th December and despite stressing this to the agent on the phone this week, we have no hope that it will get done in time.

Target have cost us so much money as well as causing us nothing but worry and stress. We thought we were being smart by starting the re-mortgage process way in advance, but over a year has gone by and they still can't get it right!

You know it's bad when the agent on our call on Wednesday took one look at our file and said 'if I was in your position I'd be ranting and raving'.

Utter incompetence and I hate having to say that. We've now got a new complaint in with Target but again I'm not holding my breath that this will be sorted in the timescales they give.

We honestly wish we'd never used the Help to Buy scheme in the first place.

12 months into deed of postponement application, 2 mortgage offers (1st one expired due to Target's delays) and £1000's of legal fees. I am 8 weeks into a 4-6 sealing process and have been told forms have expired and need to start again.

I can see I'm not the only one but it's just simply unacceptable.

I have made complaints, raised issues and no one at all seems to have any idea what is going on or what they are doing.

Horrendous experience with this company
We are 12 weeks in and still do not have our Deed of Postpoment which is supposed to take 4-6 weeks. They have cost us £1200 so far and looks like another month is going to pass without the needed paperwork to Remortage!
You get passed around the houses and told different information depending on who you talk to.
Not one person has any idea of where you are in the process, told we could get an electronic copy by one agent and then told by another agent we can't.
If you need to remortgage with Help to Buy, make sure you get this process started ASAP with your solicitors otherwise you will have no end of stress with the complete incompentance of Target & Homes England!!

No checkout staff, and cues to self serve.
This company is making massive profits by minimising staff and selling bags that used to be free, while still hiking prices every year.
Just bought loads of glass Christmas decorations and couldn't even get them wrapped in paper by a staff member.
Had to throw them in a small 15cent bag and pack it ourselves.
Perhaps spend less on lining senior managements pockets and put more staff on to give good customer service again.

One star would be too much for this company. They have lost my transfer of deeds papers. Second time we made the process they are delayed again. I am trying to contact someone from legal department and they don’t even come back with me with an answer. Just not acceptable…

Hold times are terrible and advisers dont call back when they schedule calls. This means you have to call back and wait in the queue for hours over and over again.

The phone lines open at 8am. As soon as the clock on your phone changes to 8.00am be ready to start calling. Have the number ready to call on the screen. I have been the first person many times doing this. Waiting a few minutes to call and I had to wait 20mins.
So, my story was I was trying to transfer my part of the HTB loan to my ex partners name and to get my name off the mortgage to be able to purchase my own house. My ex partners solicitors dealt with this and I had to just sign the forms. You only need a solicitor for your part to tell you not to sign anything unless you have the money. I had this already so was good to go. His solicitors took ages filling the forms in, which were wrong. Spelling mistakes etc. It took months for them to actually send the form off to get started. Don't think they had a clue and hadn't dealt with a transfer of equity loan before only where the person had added it to their mortgage which he couldn't. He wanted to keep both separate but in his name.
So, therefore we needed a Deed of Release to get me off loan. Also since he was taking over the loan in his name and the mortgage, he needed a Deed of Postponement for the bank to have first dibs on the house, before the loan people if the house was repossessed.
I was told this would take 4_6 weeks for these 2 deeds. It took 7 weeks but this is for the HTB part only. And before that, all the months of delays with the bank agreeing to give my ex the mortgage in his name only and solicitors taking ages.
Both of these deeds when finally sorted need sealing, which is a stamp and signature both by homes for England and then to the bank. It take 4-6 weeks to first get it sent and sealed by Target.
You are only allowed to chase it up after 6 weeks which is ridiculous tbh.
They are very specific about the brackets on the forms being deleted and details being correct. If they are wrong they get sent back and it all starts again 4_6 weeks. This happened to me. I was worried sick and it was horrible.
When they finally send the forms back from sealing, they THEN need sent to the bank where your mortgage is and they also seal it with a stamp, more weeks. Both the deeds were then sent back to my ex partners solicitors where it was a few more weeks for me to be taken off the mortgage finally. It was a very long process. I slept badly and was worried sick and nearly lost my house I had an offer on. I now have the house but at the time it was absolutely awful. The 4 stars are for it going over a week. But the whole process truly is awful. I wish I had never got the loan but it did mean I had made money to buy my new house.
I hope this helps as I knew none of this. Apologies for repeating parts 🙂

I really don't know how this is allowed to continue as a business. Between Target & Homes England their processses are nothing short of a complete shambles. We are STILL waiting for a Deed of Postpoment meaning we can't remortgage. We started the remortgage in April and still this goes on. 8.5 weeks waiting for a simple form is shocking and is causing real financial hardship. We are now in month 2 of a varibale rate of 6.6% and none of these companies seem to care, just fobbed off on every call (which takes 45 mins plus to get through)