Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to protect people who have signed up to the Help to Buy Scheme from property developers altering completion dates of their building programmes to a date beyond the closure of that scheme; and what assessment he has made of the scale of that issue across the UK.

Homes England have set out deadlines which are 31 October 2022 for customer applications for the scheme, 31December 2022 for practical completion of the house build and 31 March 2023 for the legal completion date. These dates were designed to ensure all transactions have time to complete and provide consumers with the confidence that their purchase would be completed prior to the scheme closing.

Homes England have been clear developers should only take customer orders on properties that can meet these deadlines.

Customers who are not able to use the Help to Buy scheme maybe able to use one of the other government schemes to help them purchase a home. Details of these schemes can be found at https://www.ownyourhome.gov.uk/