Need legal advice Call us now
First-time buyers face huge challenges with typical property deposits increasing and mortgage lenders applying stricter lending criteria, and they have now received another blow as the Government’s First Home Fund has closed after just five working days.
A year of lockdowns and furlough, as well as closures of universities and student residences, have meant that many young people have found themselves living back at their family home. The move was mean to be temporary, for a few months only. Nobody could have predicted we would still be in lockdown one year on and it goes without saying that there is only so much living in your old bedroom that young people can handle (although the free washing service and plentiful meals have been welcomed), so any government help was a welcome move.
Many of those young buyers have been relying on reopening of the much anticipated First Home Fund which the Government launched on 1st April, aimed to help those first-time buyers flee the nest and get on the property ladder.
The £60m scheme, which offers first time buyers of property in Scotland a maximum interest-free loan of £25,000 or up to 49% of the value of a new build or existing property (whichever amount is lower), to purchase a property, has already been used up and applications have now closed.
2021/22 applications are now closed and any applications in progress but not yet submitted at point of closure are unable to be processed.
So for those people who have been unexpectantly living with their families, together for the past year in one house: eating, drinking, working, sleeping inside just four walls, they will need to look at alternative routes to saving for a deposit and getting on to the property ladder this year.
