Help to Buy (England)
Help to Buy is a product in the Government’s HomeBuy range designed to help buyers in England buy your new home in an affordable way. Help to Buy will enable an eligible buyer to purchase a brand new home, funded by an affordable mortgage and with assistance from a HomeBuy agency.
Help to Buy gives you the chance to buy a new home with the assistance of an equity stake. The value of the stake is a maximum of 20% of the full price of the property. The maximum full purchase price is set at £600,000.
Under Help to Buy, the government provides an equity stake as follows:
- Government provides an equity stake of 20%
- You arrange a mortgage for 75%
- Meaning your deposit is 5%
Download our guide for full details:
To be eligible for Help to Buy, you should:
- Be a would-be buyer unable to afford a suitable home in their local area
- Be able to demonstrate access to savings or funds to pay, if required, a deposit (which may be 5% or more of the purchase price, legal fees, stamp duty and costs of moving)
- Have a good credit history
- Take out a mortgage with a qualified lender (e.g. a bank or building society)
How Help to Buy is changing
The current Help to Buy scheme will run until March 2021. From April 2021 a new scheme just for First Time Buyers will be available. As part of the new scheme, there are regional price caps, which for the North West of England is £224,400.
The new Help to Buy scheme remains the same as the current scheme where you only need a 5% deposit and receive a 20% equity stake from the Government and a 75% mortgage.
Available at the following locations
Legal Information
Help to Buy (England) is only available on selected homes at selected developments in England. Eligible applicants will be offered an equity stake of up to a maximum of 20% of the full market price. The Homes & Communities Agency will hold the second charge on the property. Applicants are required to fund at least 80% of the purchase price by means of a mortgage and any deposit where required. For the first five years there is no fee charged on the equity stake component. At the start of year six a fee is collected of 1.75% of the market value of the property at the time the stake is entered into multiplied by the outstanding percentage under the equity stake, the annual fee of 1.75% will be uplifted by RPI +1% p.a. The equity stake is provided by the Homes and Communities Agency and developer as a second charge. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up your repayments on your mortgage. Help to Buy is not available for part-exchange or buy-to-let.